The first polar bear born in the UK for 25 years has been named Hamish in tribute to his Highland birthplace.
The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) drew up a shortlist of four names for the four-month-old male cub and put them to a public vote.
Hamish received around 21,000 of the 33,000 votes cast, beating Artor, MacKinnon and Poulsen.
The youngster was born in a special enclosure at the Highland Wildlife Park near Kingussie in December.
In the poll RZSS described Hamish as a name “ideal for a polar bear born in the Highlands”.
Douglas Richardson, the park’s head of living collections, said: “We are delighted to have been able to engage with so many people.
“While we knew the public vote would be very popular, to have had more than 33,000 votes and over 21,000 for Hamish alone has been incredible.
“Of the choices put forward by our keepers, it was clear from the first day of voting that Hamish was going to be the runaway winner and we are delighted that Victoria’s cub now has a name.
“Conservation is at the heart of what we do and Hamish’s story is hopefully helping to raise awareness of the threats polar bears are facing in the wild as a result of climate change and more direct human activities.”
Hamish was born in the week before Christmas, with Victoria having mated with Arktos, one of two male polar bears at the park.
RZSS described the birth as an “outstanding achievement” and the process was featured in a Channel 4 documentary broadcast earlier this year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel