tynwald mills christmas bears

@Li4mricee/Twitter

Shopping center apologizes for erotic polar bear display

Maybe these polar bears are just good friends?

 

David Britton

Internet Culture

Posted on Nov 20, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 1:11 am CDT

The Tynwald Mills shopping center on the Isle of Man (the self-governing island located between Ireland and Great Britain) has issued an apology to “to anybody offended by our somewhat interactive display” which featured a couple of polar bears who seemed to be… um, physically displaying their affection for each other… doggy style.

https://twitter.com/Li4mricee/status/1064248919893442560

There was even another bear positioned in the corner watching the couple like some sort of perverted bear voyeur.

The vast majority of people, at least online, found this to be very amusing.

https://twitter.com/MrsManxTiger/status/1064224443617198081

https://twitter.com/TurtonSam/status/1064461563933978625

https://twitter.com/Dr_GagHalfrunt/status/1064524813123895296

On Sunda,y Tynwald Mills issued an apology via their Facebook account. The post seems to imply that a clever vandal, and not a company employee, was responsible for the saucy scene.

“We’d like to thank our customers for getting a little too into Christmas this year with our Polar Bears in the atrium,” read the post, “and can reassure you the display has changed somewhat since setup. Apologies to anybody offended by our somewhat interactive display.”

We’d like to thank our customers for getting a little too into Christmas this year with our Polar Bears in the atrium…

Posted by Tynwald Mills on Sunday, November 18, 2018

A tweet posted Liam Rice, a man who raises funds for the Isle of Man chapter of the SPCA, seemed to get the most attention for his tweet about the display, gathering nearly 6,000 retweets and over 22,000 likes. Rice announced that presumably as a reward, someone from Tynwald Mills has made ManxSPCA their charity for January.

Which of course is very nice news for dogs, cats, and other household pets.

As for polar bears, well the International Union for Conservation of Nature (or IUCN) list them as a vulnerable species, so maybe whoever set up the display just wanted to encourage the bears to keep breeding. We’re sure any bears who happened to stumble across the scene found themselves in an amourous mood.

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*First Published: Nov 20, 2018, 4:10 pm CST