NHK Documentary

Peace: The Handraised Polar Bear

On December 2, 1999, a polar bear named Peace was born at Japan's Tobe Zoological Park in Ehime Prefecture. After his mother rejected the cub, zookeeper Atsuhiro Takaichi took on the task of childrearing and subsequently succeeded in handraising a polar bear for the first time ever in Japan and the third time in the world. This program chronicles five years in the life of the young cub and the caring zookeeper from the critical time after Peace was born to the arrival of summer and the cub's first swimming lesson. As efforts continue toward bringing up Peace, we witness an unbreakable bond of mutual affection and trust.