Oregon Zoo's New Baby Polar Bear Is Totally Adorable [VIDEO]

Meet Nora, the almost 1-year-old polar bear living at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio. She will be moving to Portland this year to take up residence at the Oregon Zoo.

After she was born, he mother cared for her at first but then started leaving Nora unattended in the den for long periods of time. At that point, the care team at the zoo decided to hand rear the cub and began giving her round-the-clock care.

Nora has gone from 1 pound at birth to more than 150 pounds.

It was recommended that the Columbus Zoo find a new home for Nora because its female polar bears — Aurora and Anana — have been seen breeding with the male, Nanuq.

If one — or both — becomes pregnant - they will enter their dens in October and give birth by November. To help ensure survival of any cubs that might be born, quiet is needed, and Nora would unwittingly upset that.

"We are overjoyed to share this important milestone in Nora’s life with the fantastic care team at the Oregon Zoo," said Tom Stalf, Columbus Zoo president and CEO.

"To think back to that first week of her life, when there was such a high chance that she would not survive, we cannot be anything but happy to see her grow into the strong, playful and intelligent bear she has become."

Nora will be introduced to her Oregon Zoo care team while still in Ohio, and her Columbus Zoo care team will travel with her to Oregon to help facilitate her transition.

The timing is also good for the Oregon Zoo, which last month lost Conrad, who had been the oldest male polar bear in any North American zoo or aquarium.

Conrad had an untreatable liver tumor.

Conrad's twin sister, Tasul, is still at the Oregon Zoo, and officials believe she will likely befriend Nora and mentor her as she grows into an adult.

"We are very excited to welcome Nora and are optimistic that Tasul and she will be good companions," said Oregon Zoo curator Amy Cutting, who oversees the zoo’s marine life area. "We have an amazing keeper team here, which has enabled our bears to participate in some critical conservation science.

"We anticipate continuing that with Nora through some cooperative training, which the Columbus Zoo staff have already started in order to provide the best possible care."

The two bears also have something else in common — they have greatly advanced the understanding of how to care for polar bears.

Nora contributed to the understanding of how to raise polar bears in human care, and Tasul became the first polar to voluntarily give blood.

"The scientists we collaborate with are interested in getting information from more than one bear, and the age difference between the two is a valuable contrast as we try to understand how sea-ice loss will affect polar bears during different stages of life," Cutting said.

"Tasul is a geriatric bear, and Nora is quite young. It could be that we learn different things about polar bears from each of them."

Photos Courtesy Columbus Zoo and Aquarium