Como Park Zoo and Conservatory cannot tell you whether its polar bear is pregnant, and has decided to say so rather than wait. Astra has gained 160 pounds since March, she is sleeping more and settling into a den, and none of that is proof of anything.
The zoo published the update on November 1, 2026, with the encouraging signs and the uncertainty stated together.
Why nobody knows
There is no pregnancy test for a polar bear. Ultrasound, the obvious fallback, is defeated by the animal itself: a layer of blubber thick enough to insulate a bear in the Arctic is also thick enough to make the image useless. So the keepers watch instead, and what they watch for is weight and behavior.
Astra put on 160 pounds between March and September. For a bear preparing to den, that fat is the fuel supply. A mother polar bear eats nothing while she is denning and nursing, so the reserves she builds through the summer and fall are what carry both her and any cubs through the first months.
She is also sleeping more and spending time in her den. The zoo is clear that these changes are encouraging and that they do not settle the question, which is the honest reading. A female polar bear can go through all of this and produce nothing.
What the zoo has set up
Astra has a denning suite to herself, separate from Como’s other bears, Kulu, Neil and Nan. Upgraded cameras let keepers watch her without opening a door, because the one thing that reliably ruins a denning season is disturbance. If she chooses to stay in the den, she can stay in it unvisited.
Should she be pregnant, the zoo expects a birth in late November or December. Polar bear cubs are born at roughly a pound, blind and entirely dependent, and the first weeks are the dangerous ones. Astra would be a first-time mother, and first-time mothers lose cubs more often. Como says plainly that it is going into this with realistic expectations.
How Astra got to Saint Paul
Astra arrived at Como in October 2025 from the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington, a four-year-old female weighing 700 pounds, and moved into the zoo’s Polar Bear Odyssey habitat. The move was arranged through the Polar Bear Population Alliance, a group of accredited zoos that manages the United States polar bear population as one genetically diverse whole rather than as separate collections.
Como is not a bystander in that program. The zoo’s senior zookeeper, Allison Jungheim, is the alliance’s polar bear program leader and studbook keeper, which means the records that decide which bears are paired across the country are kept in Saint Paul. “Astra is a young, energetic bear with tremendous potential,” Jungheim said when the bear arrived. “Her genetics are valuable to the population.”
Como’s other recent arrivals have had an easier time of it: a pair of nyala calves went on view in October.
What the species picture looks like
The polar bear, Ursus maritimus, is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List under criterion A3c, assessed on August 27, 2015. The entry carries two details that are easy to miss and worth stating.
The first is that the Red List records the global population trend as unknown. Not declining, not stable: unknown. Polar bears are counted subpopulation by subpopulation across an enormous and expensive piece of the planet, and several of those subpopulations have never had a reliable estimate.
The second is that the assessment itself carries an IUCN annotation saying it needs updating. It is eleven years old. The Vulnerable category is the one on the books, and it rests on projected loss of sea ice rather than on a measured decline that has already happened.
That is the backdrop for a studbook kept in Minnesota. A sustainable population in accredited zoos is not a substitute for sea ice, and nobody at Como is claiming it is, but it is something a zoo can actually do, and this winter it comes down to one bear, a quiet room and a camera nobody is allowed to interrupt.
Quick answers
- Is Astra the polar bear pregnant?
Como Park Zoo and Conservatory says it cannot confirm a pregnancy. In an update published on November 1, 2026 the zoo described encouraging signs, including a 160-pound weight gain between March and September and more time spent sleeping and denning, while saying plainly that none of it is proof.
- Why can't a zoo just test a polar bear for pregnancy?
There is no pregnancy test for polar bears, and the blubber layer that insulates the animal also defeats ultrasound imaging. Keepers rely on weight and behavior instead.
- When would polar bear cubs be born?
Como expects a birth in late November or December 2026 if Astra is pregnant. Polar bear cubs weigh roughly a pound at birth and are blind and entirely dependent on their mother through the first weeks.
- Where did Astra come from?
She arrived at Como in October 2025 from the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington, a four-year-old female weighing 700 pounds, and lives in the zoo's Polar Bear Odyssey habitat.
- What is the Polar Bear Population Alliance?
A group of accredited zoos that manages the United States polar bear population as one genetically diverse whole. Como's senior zookeeper Allison Jungheim is its polar bear program leader and studbook keeper.
- What is the polar bear's conservation status?
The IUCN Red List lists Ursus maritimus as Vulnerable under criterion A3c, assessed on August 27, 2015. The assessment records the global population trend as unknown and carries an IUCN annotation saying it needs updating.
