Second polar bear born in Australia

The second polar bear to be born in Australia is doing well according to Sea World staff on Queensland's Gold Coast.

The baby, whose sex is yet to be determined, lost a sibling shortly after birth on Thursday.

Trevor Long from Sea World says the breeding program, started in 2000, was aimed at achieving long term success.

"It's always been a very long term desire or goal we would achieve natural breeding here of polar bears and it's with great excitement and an enormous amount of pleasure that I let you know that Leah, our female polar bear has given birth," he said.

"The birth of this polar bear, may be one day quite instrumental into the awareness and conservation value of the 25,000 other polar bears."

Mr Long identified the next seven days as critical to the survival of Sea World's newest addition.

He said, while staff did everything possible to ensure the survival of the second polar bear, they were deeply upset by its death.

"What Liya has decided to do was a process of natural selection," he explained.

"She decided to put all her efforts into one cub and that's worked exceptionally well. She's a first time mother, she's a very, very good mother and she's doing an enormous job."

"We did try and retrieve the second cub (but) unfortunately the process of that, Liya became unsettled and uncomfortable.

"We became very concerned about her health and the health of the cub so we abandoned that process and let nature take its course.

"It was traumatic and the staff were extremely saddened by that situation."