Winnipeg zoo's newest orphaned polar bear cub now has a name: Mantayo
The first polar bear cub to arrive at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo in nearly a decade now has a name.
Name is derived from Mantay-sîpî, the Cree name for the Churchill River
Darren Bernhardt · CBC News
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The first polar bear cub to arrive at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo in nearly a decade now has a name.
The bear, believed to be about 10 or 11 months old, is now called Mantayo, zoo officials announced via social media posts on Thursday.
It's derived from Mantay-sîpî, the Cree name for the Churchill River, which literally translates to "river of strangers."
"It feels like the [name] most connected to the north in a lot of ways. So I think it's a really good choice," Lindsay Hughes, a spokesperson for the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, said Friday.
Mantayo arrived in late August, shortly after being found near his dead mother just outside Churchill. (Submitted by Assiniboine Park Conservancy)
Mantayo's name was chosen in a public poll from a list that also included Duke, Marly, and Fletcher — all names related to places in or near Churchill. They were shortlisted by students from Churchill's Duke of Marlborough School and other town residents.
"Duke" and "Marly" honoured the school, while "Fletcher" was a nod to Fletcher Lake in Wapusk National Park.
Over 12,000 votes were cast in an online poll to name the bear — "the highest number that we've really ever seen in one of our naming polls," said Hughes, noting such polls typically get about 5,000 votes.
"There was a lot of attention and a lot of love for the little cub."
The public can see Mantayo in the zoo's old bear enclosures, at the Leatherdale International Polar Bear Conservation Centre. Staff will decide if he can move into the zoo's Journey to Churchill exhibit. (Submitted by Assiniboine Park Conservancy)
Mantayo arrived in late August, shortly after being found near his dead mother just outside Churchill. The province is still investigating how she died.
He underwent a quarantine period at the zoo's Leatherdale International Polar Bear Conservation Centre, where his care team has been building his trust, helping him adjust to his new home and being around people, Hughes said.
Mantayo made his public debut last week but remains at the Leatherdale's cub care centre, on view in the zoo's old bear enclosures.
"He is going to stay there for a little while. He's still at a point where he has growing to do before he can meet big, grown bears," Hughes said.
Since the zoo underwent a massive renovation, replacing those old enclosures with the Journey to Churchill exhibit and the Leatherdale centre, it has welcomed 12 bears.
The majority were found orphaned in northern Manitoba, although brothers Hudson and Humphrey were born in captivity in Toronto, and later returned to that zoo.
The only others that were not orphans were Storm — who was shipped out of Churchill after attacking a man and arrived in 2013 as a three-year-old adult — and Agee, who came to the zoo from British Columbia in 2022 as a 26-year-old retired film star. She died in 2025.
Two other orphaned bears from Manitoba, Baffin and Siku, were transferred to the Calgary Zoo in 2023 after being in Winnipeg for six years.
Baffin died in 2024 after some roughhousing with Siku crushed his trachea.
Transition needs to be 'carefully managed'
Journey to Churchill is currently home to five bears: Storm, Nanuq, York, Kaska and Willow.
"The hope is that one day [Mantayo] will be able to move in, but there's a lot of decisions to be made about which bears he might meet first and who's the best fit for him," Hughes said.
"That transition process is super, super carefully managed, so we're just taking it one day at a time at this point."
The conservation team has researched polar bear personalities, which helps identify which might be the best for Mantayo's initial greeting, she said.
Polar bears are also naturally solitary animals that come together only for breeding and when the mothers are raising cubs, so "introducing polar bears is not an easy process," Hughes said.
Another bear, Star — who arrived with her brother Blizzard in 2014 — never took to group life and now lives at the Leatherdale centre, where visitors can see her in one of the old bear enclosures.
"She really showed a bit more of an independent lifestyle … and demonstrated she was not necessarily comfortable in that space with the big bears," Hughes said.
"So the decision was made back in 2018 that she would be better off on her own with an independent home."
Blizzard lived with the large group of bears until his death in 2019.
Hudson, who was born at the Toronto Zoo in 2011 but was rejected by his mother, was the first bear to call the Journey to Churchill exhibit home. He arrived in 2013, before it was open to the public.
Humphrey followed in 2015.
Aurora was the first orphaned polar bear cub to live there. She arrived shortly after Hudson and died in 2022 following a dental procedure.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Darren Bernhardt has been with CBC Manitoba since 2009 and specializes in offbeat and local history stories. He is the author of two bestselling books: The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities from the Heart of the Continent, and Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravity and More Lesser Known Histories.
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