The baby, aged around 3 months and weighing in at 12 kilograms (25 pounds), is feasting on a diet of meat and milk, carefully adjusted to a baby polar bear's needs.

"We are hoping to get him into a settled sleeping and eating routine," Rapley said.

"Down the line, we will be looking for places where he can be with other bears. It would be wonderful if he could join the two female polar bear cubs, which Toronto Zoo rescued two years ago, at their new home at the St-Felicien Zoo in Quebec."

The cub's mother was shot by native hunters near the remote community of Fort Severn in northwestern Ontario on Hudson Bay. But Rapley said local police officer Wayne Menard persuaded the hunters to spare the cub, and he locked the baby in a jail cell until a flight south could be arranged.

Polar bear cubs normally stay with their mother for two years, so this one would not have had a chance of surviving on its own.

Aptly named carrier Bearskin Airlines provided a cage for the cub and arranged space on a flight south to Thunder Bay, Ontario. The youngster spent the night with a local couple before being loaded on an Air Canada flight to Toronto.

"Every once and while there is an injured eagle or some other animal that cannot survive in the wild and we take them to a zoo," said Don Plemel, base manager of Bearskin Airlines, who described the operation as fairly routine.