Summary

• Lost's island polar bear was part of Dharma Initiative experiments that played a significant role in the show's storyline.
• The bears were chosen due to their intelligence, memory capabilities, and strength for tasks related to manipulating electromagnetic energy.
• The season 3 DVD special feature and epilogue gave insight into Dharma's reasons for using polar bears in experiments on the island.

Among the first mysteries introduced in amount of Lost mysteries that piled up from the very first episode. A perfect example of this was the island's resident polar bear.

In the second half of the two-part Lost pilot, Kate and Sayid were leading a group of survivors into the jungle when they heard something large charging toward them. To everyone's surprise, their attacker was revealed to be a polar bear. Naturally, the discovery shocked the group, since it made no sense for a polar bear to live in such an environment. And though the polar bear died during the attack, it wound up just being the first of several polar bear-related experiences on the show. Michael, Locke, Mr. Eko, and Walt also had encounters with polar bears. However, these incidents stopped after season 3.

Lost Season 3 Reveals The Polar Bears Are From DHARMA Experiments On The Island

The Dharma Initiative Used The Polar Bears To Further Their Research

The early seasons of Lost were filled with references to polar bears, but an actual explanation for them wasn't offered until season 3 when the Others placed Kate and Sawyer in cages. As the characters came to understand, the cages once belonged to polar bears, which were brought to the island at an unspecified point in the Lost timeline by the original owners of the Others' headquarters, the Dharma Initiative. Clearly, the Dharma Initiative was using them for experimentation. This was made apparent by the cameras watching the cages and the mechanism designed to make the polar bear work for his food.

An important part of their purpose on the island relates to the activities at the Orchid station, one of the time travel shenanigans in Lost season 5.

When the bears would turn the wheel, they would be teleported to Tunisia, a detail that became a key plot point in Lost season 4. The discovery of a polar bear skeleton in Tunisia is what motivated Charlotte to go looking for the island with Faraday's team. The polar bear being the catalyst for Charlotte's journey to the island helped give real significance to the polar bear twist, rather than leave it as a detail about the island included merely to surprise viewers.

How The Polar Bears Left Hydra Island In Lost

The Polar Bears Fled From One Island To Another

Of course, the Dharma Initiative's interest in polar bears only s for part of the explanation, as that on it's own doesn't explain how Lost's main characters found themselves at odds with the animals. After all, it's important to note that the Dharma Initiative (and later the Others) occupied a small, neighboring island known in the series as Hydra Island. As for how the polar bears made it from Hydra Island to the main island, the answer to that question stems from the events of "The Purge." A calculated attack perpetrated by the Others, the Purge wiped out the Dharma Initiative and resulted in the bears being accidentally freed from captivity decades before the setting of the series.

The "Access: Granted" special feature on the season 3 DVD set confirmed that the bears escaped from the cages seen in Lost season 3 and managed to swim from Hydra Island to the main island. That makes a great deal of sense, considering that polar bears are known to be excellent swimmers. Despite the island not being a hospitable environment for their species, the polar bears succeeded in surviving on their own in the wild. The presence of at least a few polar bears on the island in 2004 was evidence of that, as it became clear over time that there wasn't just one or two bears there.

Lost's Epilogue Fully Explains The Polar Bears' History On The Island

The Dharma Initiative Considered Several Factors When Picking The Polar Bear For Experimentation

Interestingly, the Dharma Initiative's exact reasons for using polar bears specifically weren't fully spelled out until after the series ended. "The New Man in Charge," a short Lost special that acted as an epilogue to the series, saw Ben play the Hydra Orientation video narrated by Dr. Pierre Chang, who explained the importance of the polar bears. Dr. Chang explained in the video that the Dharma Initiative conducted experiments on multiple animals to see how they would react to electromagnetic energy. In the interest of evaluating its effects on "larger mammals," the Dharma Initiative selected the polar bears as test subjects.

As for why polar bears were chosen over other mammals of their size, that can be attributed to a variety of factors, including their intelligence, ability to withstand cold temperatures, and strength. All of these characteristics were singled out by Dr. Chang, who brought up the plan to send the bears to the Orchid station. Though he didn't discuss the frozen wheel directly, this speaks to the organization's motivations for having the bears turn the wheel. The extreme cold and the difficulty of turning the wheel likely called for the scientists to lean on something that could both budge the wheel and endure the freezing temperatures at the same time.

Dr. Chang also emphasized the polar bears' intelligence and memory capabilities. These were important considerations for the Dharma Initiative, as the scientists recognized that polar bears are smarter than most animals. It's possible that they believed that because of their intelligence, it wouldn't be difficult to train them to push the wheel, though this wasn't explicitly stated in the epilogue.

It's worth pointing out that Lost itself hinted at the intelligence of the polar bear having something to do with why they were on the island, as opposed to some other bear species. In Lost season 3, Charlie made a remark about this aspect of the animal, referring to the polar bear as "the Einsteins of the bear community." Evidently, this notion was not lost on the minds behind the Dharma Initiative in Lost.