Black Bear Cub

[Anchor Lead]

An Asiatic black bear, part of the bear restoration project in Jirisan Mountain, gave birth to a cub through artificial insemination thanks to some help from a team of Korean scientists. This is the world's first Asiatic black bear cub to be born through artificial insemination. Here’s how the scientists did it.

[Pkg]

A small cub skillfully climbs down a tree. It stays right next to its mother to play with her. This is the world's first Asiatic bear cub born through artificial insemination. The bear is a critically endangered species. The artificial fertilization of Asiatic black bears that began three years ago failed time after time because it is difficult to implant an egg in a bear's womb. But this time Korean scientists changed the sperm collection method to pull off the process successfully. Bear sperm collected through the conventional electric stimulation method showed less activity while the ones collected by inserting a medical device directly into the body remained quite active. In nature, only the strong female and male bears reproduce, rendering it difficult for the offspring to be genetically diverse. Pandas have been artificially fertilized before, but this is the world's first successful artificial insemination for the Asiatic black bear. The black bear cub that was born in February will first go through wildlife adaptation training before being released into the wild in the fall.