Oops! Phoenix Zoo finds bear Luka is a she, not a he

PHOENIX — What is black and white and red all over? Late Wednesday, it was the Phoenix Zoo's young Andean bear and the cub's embarrassed keepers.

In an online posting, the Zoo admitted it made a mistake when it introduced Luka.

The camera-ready bear cub was born on the third day of 2013 and, since then, has been one of the most popular residents of the zoo and the face of a string of public promotions.

Zoo keepers had been preparing to send Luka to a zoo in Nashville, where the bear would join an international species-survival program. Andean bears, the smallest of bears and known for their characteristic black fur and white or yellowish facial markings, are rare in zoos and are losing habitat in their native forests of South America.

Luka, the first living offspring of two Andean bears at the Phoenix Zoo, was meant to try to father another cub, helping spread new genetic material.

But as keepers examined Luka closely, they discovered something. Or, rather, they didn't discover something.

Luka would never father a cub.

That's because Luka, the keepers determined, is female.

He is a she.

So how could this happen? The zoo's online posting tried to explain.

Andean bears' genitalia, zoo officials wrote, are underdeveloped during a cub's first two years. Young bears are sometimes misidentified. Luka's keepers had examined the bear at 4 months of age and concluded they were dealing with a male.

"We consulted with the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and found they were equally challenged to confirm the gender of some of their recent Andean bear cubs," Zoo officials wrote in the posting on Phoenixzoo.org.

The National Zoo solved its dilemma more easily because its mother bear gave birth to twins, a male and a female, giving keepers a distinct comparison.

Still, why did it take so long?

Rio, Luka's mother, was attentive and so well-adjusted to her new role, the keepers decided to step back from the new cub for a while and let mother and cub bond.

"There was no reason for us to intervene," zoo officials wrote. "You cannot determine gender through simple visual observation."

Luka almost certainly will still leave Phoenix as part of the species-survival plan. In the South American wilds, Andean bears start their own lives at about 2 years of age. The only question now is where Luka will go. Zoo spokesman Joseph Becker said late Wednesday she could still go to Nashville, but because she's a female, she may have a wider range of options.

And Becker said the keepers were clear that Luka's value to the species and to the Zoo didn't change even if the pronoun in sentences about her did. If anything, her value increased.

"All births are critically important for this species as they are so rare in zoos," officials wrote, "and having another young female is beneficial to the entire breeding program and survival of the species."