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Scientists monitoring wild polar bears in Canada's northern regions witnessed something remarkably uncommon this fall: a female bear adopting a cub that was not biologically her own.

The half-decade-old maternal bear and her nearly year-old cubs were observed and captured on camera during the yearly polar bear journey along the Hudson Bay's western shore near Churchill, Manitoba, an locale renowned for its polar bear population.

"It's unusual," stated a researcher with an international bear organization. "We don't really know why it happens...but we know it is a rare event at all."

This represents only the 13th known case of fostering out of nearly five thousand bears studied for almost fifty years in that region.

The female bear was initially tagged as she came out from her birthing den this spring. Initially, she had a single offspring, which researchers tagged for study.

In the fall, she was seen again, but this time with a pair of cubs - the initially tagged cub and a second without a tag. Researchers are uncertain what became of the new cub's biological mother, but they are trying to locate her using genetic samples.

"These animals need all the help they can get in the current era with a warming climate," noted a wildlife biologist. "When mother bears have the chance to pick up another cub and raise it and see it to independence, it's a good thing for the bears."

Polar bears in the wild only have a fifty-fifty survival rate of surviving into maturity, but having a mother caring for them improves their odds.

The cubs are reported as healthy, researchers said, and they will likely remain with their mother until they are about two-and-a-half years old.

Following this, the family is expected to head out to sea ice, where the cubs will learn from their mother bear how to hunt seals and survive on their own.

"It's just nice to know that the animals are caring for each other," concluded the scientist.