Barcroft / Fame Pictures
A longtime member of the Philadelphia Zoo, Confer, 39, decided last year that he would try to take a photo of the polar bears swimming in their exhibit. With the magnificent bears' recent addition to the endangered species list, Confer thought the photograph would be timely. "The zoo is about 10 minutes from our house and every month, my wife and I would take our daughter for a visit," Confer explains to Paw Nation.
Once at the zoo, he'd always make a beeline for the polar bear exhibit, but Confer never saw the polar bears swim. "They're supposed to spend the majority of their life in the pool, and I can't even see 'em take a quick dip," Confer remembers. "They were always laying around sleeping."
Last November, on his 10th visit to the zoo in quest of his polar bear photograph, Confer got lucky. "I was walking away from the polar bear exhibit when I heard my wife yell my name," Confer tells Paw Nation. The photographer ran back to the polar bear exhibit, where -- finally!-- one of the polar bears had jumped into the pool.
"She [Coldilocks the polar bear] was swimming in big counter-clockwise circles around the pool," Confer says. Quickly, he placed the lens of his camera right up against the glass and began firing off shots on his camera -- about 3 to 4 frames per second. "I couldn't tilt my camera up or down, or else there would be glare from the glass," Confer explains.
The bear glided around the pool, batting at a ball and swimming in languid circles. "She'd go out of my sight and come back," says Confer. "She seemed curious and would swim back towards me."
Then Coldilocks shocked Confer with a delightful and unusual maneuver. "She swam right up, floating about four feet above in the tank, then she just let herself go and slowly dropped to the bottom of the aquarium," Confer says. "As she dropped, her left paw just slowly came up." The bear's right paw, says Confer, remained down.
Was Coldilocks really waving at the photographer? "I'm not sure if she was waving at me," says Confer. "But it sure felt like it."
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What a beautiful pic. I would agree , the polar bear offered up a wave ! Thanks for sharing this pic , it made my day .
Are there polar bears in Antarctica? If not lets introduce them there to save them.
Polar Bears are in the North Pole (Artic). Penguins are in the South Pole (Antartic). Do you really want the polar bears down there eating up all the penguin dads who can't get away because they are carrying around their babies on their feet??? Imagine all the penguin moms coming home from the sea to find dead carcasses of their loved ones strewn all over the icy beach. Too sad of a picture to even contemplate!
Love this web site the polar bear is awesome!
I agree-what a beautiful picture-made my day too:)!
I think da bear was trying to maul the photographer through the glass,
they sure are cute, but they sure do like to eat meat.
He looks more like he's saluting...but either way, wave or salute, it's totally cute!
This also made my day! lol I love bears in general but polar bears are the best! Awesome picture........I'm from texas and I love seeing pics like this!!!
Ok, lets do this. Add polar bears to Antartica to save them, then add pengiuns to the Artic to save them. There, problems solved! Besides, the polar bears up north could probably use a good snack once and a while.
Wendi, thus is the cycle of life. I would much rather see animal eat animal than hunter or poacher slaughtering them all for profit or sport(not that it should be called a sport-ridiculous really) Humans have upset the balance once again.
Lisa, I agree it is the cycle of life. (I called myself using dry humor in my earlier post :) However, I believe that exporting polar bears to the Antartic will not keep people from needlessly killing them. Humans have been ruining the earth for centuries. Even when we have good intentions we still often times manage to get it wrong because we simply don't have enough information to make the best decisions. The cycle of life is way too complicated for us to fully understand.
Waving? LOL! Maybe the bear is hard of hearing. "Speak up !!"
the bear was waving to the dufus.
The first time I went to the Central Park Zoo the polar bear was in the water playing...I got tons of pictures....guess I'm pretty lucky.
I guess I am like Annie...not that impressed with this story. We went to the Asheboro Zoo in NC, one time...got tons of beautiful pics of the bear swimming, playing in the water, etc. Had some done in black and white to have framed and hang up. We even recorded him swimming on video and he swims right up to us and looks straight into the camera...looks like he is smiling.
I think it is a great story...something positive for a change. So tired of hearing stories of death and destruction. It is nice to see a story like this even if it is a simple story of a man's quest to photograph a Polar Bear. But if it is so lame to you,why did you even click on the story? Maybe it was not so bad, huh?
Kristen,
I was just disappointed in the story...I expectted more from a headline on AOL that reads in all caps "Caught on Camera: Polar Bear Waves at Photographer!
I thought there was something amazing to the story...was this in the wild? Had they been training it to wave?. So, yes I was disappointed that it was just a pic of the bear and he was not actually waving, just pawing and floating. Its a cute pic...headline should have read.."Cute Picture of Polar Bear in Water" Although I still would have wondered why it was in the headlines on AOL.
It isn't a matter of being "impressed" with the story... it is a fun photo of an amazing and endangered animal. Cheer up and enjoy the "wave" :)
Well Cheezeman-- There used to be lots of polar bears on the north poll and the antartic until the ice started to recede, because of global warming. Which a lot of people don't believe in but if they would just watch the National Geographic channel theywould learn a lot. But anyway as the ice recedes that makes the seals and a lot of the Polar Bears food chain go away to distance places or die out so that means that the Polar Bear is dying out,Man is also helping to destroy the Polar bear to by shooting them just for their fur.
There are no polar bears in Antarctica. They are native only to the Arctic. The Polar Bear is not dying out and numbers have been increasing. There is only one small area where they are not increasing but everywhere else in the Arctic they are doing fine.