Australian polar bear cub dies at Sea World

A female polar bear born at the Sea World on Australia's Gold Coast has died after just nine days, it was revealed Tuesday.

Staff at the theme park are "taking it very, very hard as you can imagine," Sea World director of Marine Sciences Trevor Long told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The tragedy reportedly occurred Saturday night when staff discovered the cub was not getting enough milk.

"(In) 2013 Liya had two cubs and she raised them both for 12 hours then abandoned one cub and chose to raise one cub," Long said.

"However, this time she has gone eight or nine days and we take that as a positive situation."

When the cubs were born a spokesperson for Sea World told Xinhua, "the twins are a welcome addition, as there is only 30,000 polar bears remaining worldwide and we are trying to raise awareness about global warming and conservation." Endit