{"id":722810,"date":"2026-08-01T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722810\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T13:22:08","slug":"erik-the-polar-bear-returns-to-hull-maritime-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722810\/","title":{"rendered":"Erik the polar bear returns to Hull Maritime Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A popular stuffed polar bear is to go on show at Hull Maritime Museum when it reopens after a six-year, \u00a320.4m renovation next week. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Erik the polar bear was captured in the Arctic in the 1860s by the crew of the Dundee whaling ship SS Erik.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He was on display at the museum for more than 40 years, and is now set to take  pride of place in the Age of Sail gallery when the museum reopens on 8 August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Robin Diaper, curator of social and maritime history, said Erik&#8217;s return was  significant not just because of his &#8220;enduring popularity&#8221; but also because &#8220;he helps us tell the story of the deep connections between Hull and the Arctic whaling industry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Conservation work in 2010 revealed Erik had newspapers from 1874 hidden inside his body.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The museum said this was &#8220;a fascinating reminder of the Victorian techniques used to preserve the bear after it was brought back from the Arctic&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A popular stuffed polar bear is to go on show at Hull Maritime Museum when it reopens after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-722810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}