Brown bear

The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America and is the largest terrestrial carnivoran. There are several recognized subspecies within the brown bear species.

While the brown bear's range has shrunk and it has faced local extinctions, it remains listed as a least concern species by the IUCN with a total population of approximately 200,000. As of 2012, this and the American black bear are the only bear species not classified as threatened by the IUCN. However, the Californian, North African (Atlas bear), and Mexican subspecies were hunted to extinction in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and many of the southern Asian subspecies are highly endangered. The smallest subspecies, the Himalayan brown bear, is critically endangered, occupying only 2% of its former range and threatened by uncontrolled poaching for its parts. The Marsican brown bear in central Italy is believed to have a population of just 30 to 40 bears.

Polar Bear (locomotive)

Polar Bear is a Bagnall steam locomotive built in 1905 for the Groudle Glen Railway, to supplement the similar but slightly smaller Sea Lion. The two Bagnalls were temporarily taken out of service in the 1920s when they were replaced by a pair of battery locomotives. These proved unsatisfactory, and Polar Bear and Sea Lion were returned to traffic. The railway was closed for the duration of World War II, and when the line reopened in the late 1940s only Polar Bear was returned to traffic. Following the 1962 closure of the GGR, Polar Bear was sold to the Brockham Museum Trust in 1967. In 1982 it passed, with the rest of the Brockham collection, to the Amberley Museum Railway, where it was returned to traffic in the early 1980s. Polar Bear's boiler was condemned around 1988, returning to service with a new boiler in 1993. Its boiler certificate expired at the end of 2010; with a retube and work on the firebox being required before a return to service. Since being based at Amberley, Polar Bear has returned to the Groudle Glen on three occasions (1993, 1996 and 2005) to visit.