![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Photo-courtesy-of-Cochrane-Polar-Bear-Habitat-1024x549.jpg\")
Polar bear eating pumpkin \u2013 Photo courtesy of Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat<\/p>\n Polar bear eating pumpkin \u2013 Photo courtesy of Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not everyday that Henry the polar bear sees something that weighs more than he does.<\/p>\n
At 1,200-pounds, the polar bear is the world\u2019s largest land predator, but here was something substantially heavier, and it was just sitting there in his enclosure.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Henry-the-polar-bear-eating-pumpkin-\u2013-Photo-courtesy-of-Cochrane-Polar-Bear-Habitat-1024x576.jpg\")
Henry the polar bear eating pumpkin \u2013 Photo courtesy of Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat<\/p>\n
Defensive at first, Henry eventually dug into the sweet crunchy flesh of a giant, 1,400 lbs. pumpkin that was donated to the nonprofit that looks after him. The photos will steal a chuckle out of anyone.<\/p>\n
Reported<\/a> first by CTV News, the Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat<\/a> received the pumpkin as a total coincidence, and the organization\u2019s manager Amy Baxendell-Young told the outlet how it happened.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of my staff was driving up from down south and ended up directly behind this pumpkin as it was on the highway,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her staff member gave her a call, and said that the truck carrying the massive gourd had a logo on the side: Aidie Creek Gardens. Baxendell-Young decided to call them up.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd pretty quickly they got back to me and said, if we don\u2019t take it, it\u2019s just going in the compost. Henry actually came out and didn\u2019t know what it was\u2014and got actually quite defensive \u2026 because I think he was just quite shocked at this new thing in his enclosure.\u201d<\/p>\n Evolved to eat mostly baby seals which are all fat, a polar bear can zoom through a pumpkin without putting on any weight at all. Unlike for humans, for whom a pumpkin or squash is a complex carb with polyphenols and fiber, for a bear it\u2019s all empty calories.<\/p>\n The Cochrane Habitat in Ontario is the world\u2019s only nonprofit organization that provides sanctuary to polar bears in need of human care and who can\u2019t live in the wild anymore. They often receive presents for their bears around Polar Bear Awareness Week.<\/p>\n MORE PHOTOGENIC BEARS:<\/p>\n Photos released by the habitat show Henry in something of a food coma after smashing around a third of the pumpkin in one sitting.<\/p>\n SHARE This Polar Bear\u2019s Lucky Day With Your Friends On Social Media\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Polar bear eating pumpkin \u2013 Photo courtesy of Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat It\u2019s not everyday that Henry the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1313,64,63,2065,38643,21184,44825,99814,8212,128,155786,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-266664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-cute","13":"tag-funny","14":"tag-laughs","15":"tag-nonprofit","16":"tag-photography","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-shelter","19":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Henry-having-eaten-hils-fill-\u2013-Photo-courtesy-of-Cochrane-Polar-Bear-Habitat-1024x576.jpg\")
Henry having eaten his fill \u2013 Photo courtesy of Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat<\/p>\n