Berlin zoo celebrates polar bear birth

Berlin - The city's Tierpark zoo is celebrating the birth of a polar bear, nine months after its mother lost a cub.

Footage posted on social media shows mother Tonja tenderly licking the unnamed cub shortly after its birth. A second cub was stillborn.

The zoo, in the eastern part of the German capital, said that the new polar bear was about the size of a guinea pig and had already been heard suckling.

Tonja's first cub, Fritz, died of unknown causes in March at the age of four months.

The mortality rate for young polar bears is about 50% and can be even higher during the first 10 days.