Polar Bear
neutralOurs, not the game's own: how a polar bear behaves. Same on Bedrock v1.26.40.05 for weight, group, health. Checked 2026-08-22, and here is how we check.
Added InOverview
The Polar Bear is a neutral mob in Minecraft, which means it is not hostile on sight, and its own behaviour decides when that changes: adults are neutral but become hostile if a baby is nearby and a player approaches.
Polar Bears make their home in the Overworld, turning up in Snowy Plains, Ice Spikes, Frozen Ocean, Frozen River, and 1 other biome type.
In practice you will recognise it quickly, because adults are neutral but become hostile if a baby is nearby and a player approaches.
Stat-wise it sits at 30 health (15 hearts), dropping 1 to 3 experience on death.
It was first added in 1.10 and has been a fixture of Minecraft ever since.
A useful detail many players miss: Adults attack foxes on sight.
The Polar Bear sits in a useful middle ground, harmless if you respect it, but a real threat if you provoke it, which makes reading the situation important.
Damage by Difficulty
Spawning
Natural spawns for the Polar Bear occur in Snowy Plains, Ice Spikes, Frozen Ocean, Frozen River, and Snowy Taiga.
Because it appears across 4 different biomes, it is one of the easier mobs to track down, and heading to any of them should turn one up before long.
Spawns on ice or snow blocks in cold biomes, in groups of 1-2 (adult sometimes with baby).
They tend to arrive in clusters of 1-2 rather than alone, so expect to meet more than one at a time.
Naturally spawned polar bears will despawn over time when no player is nearby; naming one with a name tag or leading it away on a lead keeps it permanent.
Whether one leaves you alone is not up to you alone: adults are neutral but become hostile if a baby is nearby and a player approaches.
Where the Polar Bear spawns
Deep Frozen Ocean and Frozen Ocean are where it stands strongest: weight 1 on the creature list and 100% of it, arriving 1 to 2 at a time. It also turns up in Ice Spikes at 9.1% and Snowy Plains at 9.1%.
| Biome | Weight | Share | Group |
|---|---|---|---|
 Deep Frozen Ocean | 1 | 100% | 1 to 2 |
 Frozen Ocean | 1 | 100% | 1 to 2 |
 Ice Spikes | 1 | 9.1% | 1 to 2 |
 Snowy Plains | 1 | 9.1% | 1 to 2 |
Drops
The Polar Bear drop table breaks down like this:
Nothing here is guaranteed: a kill can give you 0 to 2 Raw Cod and 0 to 2 Raw Salmon.
You also collect 1 to 3 experience for every Polar Bear you defeat.
Farming polar bears is the standard way to stockpile raw cod in quantity.
With nothing guaranteed, output is swingy: over many kills the averages hold, but any single Polar Bear may give you little, so farm in volume rather than expecting a jackpot each time.
| Item | Count | Chance | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw Cod | 0 to 2 | not every kill | Looting III up to 5, cooked when burnt |
| Raw Salmon | 0 to 2 | not every kill | Looting III up to 5, cooked when burnt |
It is not the only source of Raw Salmon: the salmon drops 1.
Polar Bear attributes
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
 Size | 1.4 x 1.4 blocks |
 Tracking range | 10 chunks |
 Health | 30 points |
 Attack damage attribute | 6 |
| Follow range | 20 blocks |
 Experience | 1 to 3 |
 Movement speed | 0.25 |
The Polar Bear does not stand alone on these numbers: the turtle on the same 30 health.
Polar Bear: 3.31% of its category, rank 21 of 52
On 4 of the 66 biome lists (4 spawn entries in total), and 3.31% of every spawn the game puts in its creature group is a polar bear.
The ranges Minecraft Java 26.2 rolls for a polar bear give 1 Raw Cod per kill, so 64 Raw Cod costs 64 kills before Looting. Raw Salmon comes in at 1 per polar bear, so 64 kills before that stack is full.
| Item | Average per kill |
|---|---|
 Raw Cod | 1 |
 Raw Salmon | 1 |
How this average is worked out
| Weapon | Attack damage | Full swings | Swings per 64 Raw Cod |
|---|---|---|---|
 golden sword, wooden sword | 4 | 8 | 512 |
 stone sword | 5 | 6 | 384 |
| iron sword | 6 | 5 | 320 |
 diamond sword, golden axe, wooden axe | 7 | 5 | 320 |
 netherite sword | 8 | 4 | 256 |
 diamond axe, iron axe, stone axe | 9 | 4 | 256 |
 netherite axe | 10 | 3 | 192 |
Turned around, 4 unblocked polar bear hits empty a player's 20 health, 30% of the bar at a time, which is what the polar bear's 6 damage on Normal buys it. On Easy the same polar bear hit is 20%, on Hard 45%, so 5 hits against 3.
Behavior & Combat
In the field, adults are neutral but become hostile if a baby is nearby and a player approaches. Babies are always passive.
Its 30 health is 13th of 80, just under the 32 of the camel.
On the offensive it deals 4 on Easy, 6 on Normal and 9 on Hard, and you will need to chew through 30 health (15 hearts) to bring one down.
The fastest way to win is to lean on what it fears: Fire.
The Polar Bear cannot be bred, so the only way to get more is to find them spawning naturally in their home biomes.
As long as you avoid landing the first blow, you can usually go about your business near a Polar Bear without trouble.
Polar Bear commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| /summon minecraft:polar_bear | Puts a polar bear on the block you are standing on. |
| /give @p minecraft:polar_bear_spawn_egg | Hands you the polar bear spawn egg, so you can place polar bears where you want them. |
| /kill @e[type=minecraft:polar_bear] | Removes every polar bear that is loaded around you. |
Entity id minecraft:polar_bear, spawn egg minecraft:polar_bear_spawn_egg.
Polar Bear farm
Build a polar bear farm around the one rule the game applies to every polar bear. Spawns on ice or snow blocks in cold biomes, in groups of 1-2 (adult sometimes with baby).
Deep Frozen Ocean is where the polar bear has the biggest slice of the roll, 100% across the 4 lists the polar bear appears on, and that is the biome to build a polar bear farm in.
1 to 2 polar bears arrive per roll, so give the polar bear platform width instead of stacking it.
Each kill is worth 1 to 3 experience and up to 2 raw cod, or 5 with Looting III, so the size of the polar bear farm follows the number you need of that one item.
1 to 3 experience per killRaw Cod up to 2, 5 with Looting IIIDeep Frozen Ocean at 100%Polar Bear version history
The polar bear was added in Minecraft 1.10, which came out on 8 June 2016, so the polar bear has been in the game for 10 years.
2 other mobs here came with it: the husk and the stray. 39 of our 88 mobs are older than the polar bear, 46 are younger.
Every polar bear figure on this page is read from Minecraft Java 26.2 as it stands today, not from the version above.
What Polar Bear sounds like
Turn subtitles on and every polar bear sound names itself in the corner of the screen. These are the 5 lines a polar bear can put there, and you can play any of them yourself with /playsound minecraft:entity.polar_bear.ambient master @p.
| Sound | What you hear |
|---|---|
| entity.polar_bear.ambient |  Polar Bear groans |
| entity.polar_bear.hurt | Polar Bear hurts |
| entity.polar_bear.death | Polar Bear dies |
| entity.polar_bear.ambient_baby | Baby Polar Bear hums |
| entity.polar_bear.warning | Polar Bear roars |
