The four polar bears at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo got to spend time together for the very first time this week.

The bears — Hudson, Storm, Kaska and Aurora — were all allowed to be in the same enclosure on Wednesday, according to zoo officials.

A YouTube video posted by the zoo on Friday afternoon shows the bears wandering in the fenced enclosure, approaching each other and playing.

"I've been working with the bear team over the last few months to successfully introduce four bears to each other," Janice Martin, the zoo's curator of collections and behavioural husbandry, says in the video.

That work led up to introducing Hudson, who was born and raised at the Toronto Zoo before moving to Winnipeg last year, to the other three bears this week.

Previous Next "Hudson is obviously wandering around the enclosure a bit bewildered but a bit cautious," she said.

"It's all normal behaviour; he's just got to watch what everybody's doing."

She added that Kaska, a young female bear, "seems to be the friendlier of the four and approaches everybody."

Officials say they are bringing the polar bears together in preparation for the zoo's Journey to Churchill exhibit, which is opening this summer.

The polar bears are currently living in enclosures at the International Polar Bear Conservation Centre, also located on the zoo grounds.

Now that the bears have all met each other, the gates between the enclosures can be opened up so they can socialize with each other if they want, a zoo spokesperson told CBC News.