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VIDEO: Man Swims with Polar Bear

Mark Dumas, 60, is the only man in the world who can swim with a polar bear.

This fearless guy from Abbotsford, British Columbia, regularly goes for dip in his swimming pool with 16-year-old female polar bear Agee and the pair enjoy a watery cuddle together.

Although polar bears are the world’s largest land predators, they can grow very fond to people.

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Read Mark and Agee’s full story below, provided by Daily Mail.

Some people dream of swimming with dolphins, while others have nightmares about swimming with sharks.

But bear trainer Mark Dumas likes nothing more than to share his pool and his bed with a 60 stone polar bear.

Mark’s unusual best friend is Agee, a full-size adult polar bear who stands at over seven feet when on her hind legs.

The pair share an incredibly intimate bond, which even extends to bear hugs.

And when the wrestling has tired both the animal expert and his amazing pet out, they both take a nap together inside Agee’s enclosure.

Mark and Agee are just two of the eccentric characters featured in a new documentary, by Barcroft Original, about people who live with the world’s largest land predators.

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From a family who train the huge animals for the movies to a couple of surfing cubs, documentary ‘There’s a Polar Bear in my pool’ shows exactly what it’s like to share your life with a bear.

Elsewhere, Johnny Welde and his family raise and wrestle 13 of the huge mammals at their Florida home, with some weighing a staggering 900lbs and standing at 8ft tall.

Johnny’s family have been raising bears for the movie industry for almost 90 years and he even enlisted the help of his son, Johnny Junior, who has been handling the bears since he was three-years-old.

Johnny’s wife, Monica, said: ‘We knew what these animals were capable of and we could read them – we would never put our children in danger.

‘In the wild, bears can be dangerous animals – but the relationship we have with them is built up over years of living with them, 365 days a year.

‘The Welde bears have been in the Beverly Hillbillies show, The Lucy Show, Petticoat Junction, Two Little Bears with Eddie Albert and various Disney movies.’

The family train the bears to do different tricks based on their personalities and the movements they like to do.

But not all of the pet bears are quite so fearsome – Carl Bovard shares his Florida home with two baby bears, Bruiser and Honey, who love nothing more than to swim and surf in the garden.
While Carl’s babies may not pack the same punch as Mark and Johnny’s, they can still cause trouble.

Carl added: ‘Some people may think it’s fun to feed baby bears but you can get some nasty scratches.

‘These guys go through six or seven bottles a day and we keep them on the formula – which is expensive – for as long as we can as it’s part of the bonding process.

‘Once they’re finished with this then they like to cool off in the pool and even have a surf.’

Joanna Grey

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