Bizarre mating polar bear display leaves shoppers 'disturbed'

The Christmas season is almost upon us, which is good news for everyone who likes to see the decorations light up our streets and shops. Yes, festive music is now blaring out of loudspeakers, baubles and tinsel have been strung up in bars, and in our shopping malls, large plastic Santas and cute reindeers have been erected to amuse the general public. However, this week shoppers in a mall at the Isle of Man were reportedly "disturbed" by a display model of two polar bears, which brought a new meaning to the term "erected." Ahem.

The NSFW display was first spotted by Twitter user Ruth Hogg, who toddled down to Tynwald Mills shopping centre to pick up some goods, when she was alarmed by an unusual Christmas display. The display in question involved two model polar bears, one of which was on all fours, while the other was positioned right behind and was standing on two legs.

Due to the way the two bears were positioned, the yuletide display ended up looking incredibly dirty, as it now seemed like one of the model bears had mounted the other and was mating with it. Whether it was an accident or a practical joke is currently unknown, but Ruth Hogg found the whole scene so funny that she snapped two pictures of the offensive bears, before uploading her pics to Twitter. Sharing them with her followers, she captioned the snaps: "Went to Tynwald Mills today and was quite amused yet disturbed by their placement of their Xmas polar bears [sic]."

Twitter users were very much amused by the images. One person commented: "Not surprised you were alarmed, Ruth. Frankly, Mrs Bear looks like she’s about to turn around and give him a mouthful! We think there needs to be a challenge to find the most inappropriate Christmas scene," while another person added: "My husband and I couldn’t quite believe what we saw, he spotted it first, then we both just stood and stared then howled laughing!

Thankfully, the shopping centre itself seemed to be in on the joke, and released a statement of their own on Twitter addressing the situation. A spokesperson wrote: "We’d like to thank our customers for getting a little too into Christmas this year with our Polar Bears in the atrium and can reassure you the display has changed somewhat since setup. Apologies to anybody offended by our somewhat interactive display."

They later took things a little further by sharing a picture of a plastic polar bear cub which was wearing a festive jumper, writing "It’s a Christmas miracle! This little guy showed up at Tynwald Mills this morning! ‘He’s a mighty four stone, three lbs, and mum is doing well."

Well, I suppose that any publicity is good publicity. However, I really hope we don't see a polar bear childbirth display in the near future...