As you're likely to know, Inuka, Singapore's (and the world's) first polar bear born in the tropics, has died.

He was allowed to pass away peacefully while in deep sleep, following a health check on Wednesday morning that found his painful wounds on his paw pads, aggravated by his longstanding arthritis, were not recovering.

Combined with a host of other old-age ailments, it was all giving Inuka great suffering, and the team of keepers and vets looking after him made the tough decision to let him go after 27 years of life.

The zoo held a memorial ceremony for the great ice bear, one of the zoo's biggest stars, and arguably one of Singapore's national icons, on Thursday morning.

One of his lead keepers, Mohan Ponichamy, gave the following moving eulogy that sheds light on the amusing personality that won Inuka all his fans over the years, as well as providing insight into the intensive care process he and his team provided to him in his golden years.

Here it is in full:

“A very good morning to all. Welcome to the Singapore Zoo and to the Frozen Tundra and also the home to our Polar bear Inuka.”

Now these were the opening lines of our daily interaction with Inuka that was conducted right here at the grand stand.

For the past 27 years he has not just brought smiles to our keepers, Singapore zoo staff but also brought lots of smiles to the millions of our park visitors from all over the world, and especially Singaporeans. We watched him grow from a 350g cub to a 524kg, standing at an impressive height of 3.2m!

We have been conducting keeper interactions for years. It is a routine, which got broken this morning. For the first time, I walked through the Frozen Tundra… Inuka was not… he was not there. He was not in the Frozen Tundra climate control area. We didn’t walk into his den this morning to see a cheery, a cheery Inuka greeting us. Every morning he will greet us. He’ll be right there. The space is empty now. Just like the exhibit behind us, behind me.

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Over the past three weeks, many people asked me – Are you sad to see Inuka in this declining state? When he passed on yesterday, how do you feel? How do you feel now that he is gone?

I have been taking care of Inuka for the past three years, and I interacted with him almost on a daily basis, together with my team. The first thing that we do each morning is we enter the den, where he would be there, he will be waiting for us. He knows that we are there. Aside from our duties of feeding him and taking care of him, in the last two years we’ve had to monitor him really, really closely. Lots of time was spent but it was worthwhile and it was for him. We did not rush him to take his medication, we did not rush him to get into the exhibit. It’s really up to him when he feels like, when he wants to do it.

Now Inuka again, though he may be a really old bear, he is still very sharp. Now every morning when we assess him on his demeanour, on his movement, and how he responds to his carers, we give him signals, hand signals. And he will perform them on the mark, beautifully. This is the signal to open his mouth. This is the signal to sit, or to lie down. In his later years, his hind legs were not as strong as they were before so we could not get him to stand, and we would not let him stand also. But if he does, he’s a monster.

Now the only time that he’s very comfortable standing is in there, in the water. Now the pool is 3m deep and he stands in the pool every single day during all his interactions, he will stand. And he towers above the water. But on land, he could not.

Now Inuka again, he may be an old bear. But he is a good boy, our good boy. But not without any mischief. Now what are the mischief does he do? One of his mischief that he does, again in his later years, though he has aged – these are very important indicators that he is well taken care of and he is comfortable.

Now one of the mischief that he does — I have shared and repeated this many many times during the interaction. You see the waterfall? The backdrop in front of you? He loves to stop the waterfall. How does he do that? He picks up his toy and he blocks the inlet which is just on the left of the waterfall. Now I was told when the first time when he noticed the inlet, he actually used his paw. And by the way his paw is 25cm across. He blocked the inlet but he could not stop it because there are gaps in between his digits.

Now bears are really smart, they’re problem solvers What did he do? He picked up one of his toy and that’s the red disc that you see right in front. He picked it up, manoeuvred the disc, and he blocked the inlet. Now when he was there you might think that it’s because of the suction, right, that’s the inlet for the waterfall, it’s a pump and it sucks in. So it’s very powerful. So we thought he likes the pressure. But actually when we observed him doing it, he’s actually watching the waterfall at the same time so he know, he knew how it worked and he knew that the inlet actually controls the waterfall. He can spend the entire day trying to stop it. And I have to thank the water treatment engineers, Maidin, I’m not sure whether you’re here, Ali, Jasni, Zaffan the new guy, you guys really put up with it because if he blocks it the park overheats and we have complained many many times.

But we never stopped Inuka doing it because he loves doing it. So what we did was to… one of our head keepers what he did was he drilled holes into the disc. And that’s the holes you see. So not only to save face, but still can suck in the water from the waterfall.

For all our large carnivores, we give them enrichments. Now some of it might be handmade, we’ll do up enrichments for them and sometimes we buy, we import toys. Now these toys are meant for large carnivores and bears. But being Inuka, he does not really like them. You know why? He’s very practical, just like all Singaporeans. Right, we are a bunch of practical people. So his favourite toys are actually cones — traffic cones and bins. These are his favourite toys and he will play almost the whole day with it. Now he doesn’t display the same behavior on land… it might be because of all the pain he was suffering. But in water he does not feel the pain, he does not feel his weight, he will play, he will wrestle with his toys, he will maneuver, and in fact, there are many times where he gets really excited in the water with his toys, he will twist he will turn and two days later it might be too much for his body and he will not respond, he will not want to move.

Now we all knew that Inuka is already past his lifespan. I’ve been working with him for the last three years. And together with my team we saw the decline gradually. Now the first episode that we knew that he was really slowing down was in 2016, December. He slept the whole day and did not respond to us. It was only after lunch, we were trying to feed him, coax him with a long pole, we brought the food to his mouth – and only after lunch that he responded. He took some of his meat, and we managed to give his pain meds. And that was the first time he was getting the full dose of his pain meds. And at 6pm he finally got up.

We were all worried sick. We were all worried sick. We were.

Now in the last three months, he stopped interacting with us for the keepers’ talk and he preferred to lay down and rest. He was still alert but he didn’t move much. So we gradually stopped all the talk because we just wanted him to do whatever he pleases, but we were monitoring him very closely.

Now with a team of keepers, I take care of a number of animals, the White Tigers, Inuka being the biggest, then you have the tigers, the smallest would be the Meerkats, and of course the Tanukis and Wolverines in Frozen Tundra.

Inuka is the most famous among my charges. But what I think that really wins people is his personality. Yes, a bear has personality.

Now one of his personality is his inquisitiveness, just like all Singaporeans. We are very kaypoh. Now how is this: he may be in his pool, he could be at the other end of the pool, he could be under the waterfall, but when the suppliers come to his climate control area, when they stack up his straw, his beds of straw, his bags of salt, the store, the lights in the climate control area will be off but the lights at the store will be on. Now he may be at the other end, a minute later you could just sense there’s someone watching you. And when you turn around he’s there. He’ll be watching what we are doing. And he will not leave until all of us leave his climate control area. Very kaypoh.

Now again these are all good markers, good indicators that he is still alert.

Am I sad to say goodbye to Inuka, an animal like Inuka? Yes, of course. But in the last few days I had to remain strong for my team. I had to remain strong for Inuka, to stand firm on the decision to let him go and end his suffering.

I love Inuka, we all love him, and we want to do what’s best for him. It is painful for us, but in the end, all the pain is him. He feels all the pain. He is in a better place now.

Inuka will always have a place in our hearts. We can never forget him.

Now before I end, I would like to thank Inuka’s past and present veterinarians... (he names all the members of staff at the zoo who helped in caring for him)

Now I get most of our visitors, all of us who does interaction and whenever a guest asks how is the polar bear? And Inuka will be lying in front. He’ll be asking us, how is he? And most of the time I’ll be like, where is the polar bear? I don’t see a polar bear. I see a tropical bear. I see a Singaporean.

Thank you all for your words of support and encouragement in the last few weeks. God bless!

Read more about Inuka's life:

Top photo courtesy of Wildlife Reserves Singapore