Keepers at a wildlife park were left scratching their heads when what looked like a brown bear turned up in the polar bear enclosure.
But, on closer inspection, they found their female polar bear had disguised her white fur under a thick layer of mud, leaving her barely recognisable.
Vickie Larkin, head carnivore keeper at Royal Zoological Society of Scotland Highland Wildlife Park near Kingussie, said: "The keepers had quite a good laugh when we discovered her.
"She's generally always a bit muddy as she loves rolling about in the peat, but we have never seen her this muddy.
"She must have been having a ball tumbling around her enclosure. She soon cleaned off by taking a dip in her pool."
Victoria is the UK's only female polar bear and has her own enclosure at the park, separate to the park's two male polar bears as in the wild the species only pairs up for a short time to mate.
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