So, we have always speculated the experimental nature of the island, ever since we saw polar bears living in the tropics.

But what has not been adequately explained from the show, and seemingly forgotten until the S3 premiere, is just what the purpose of the experiments on the animals may have been.

We see Sawyer in this Animal Cage -- obviously using food rewards to attempt to train the polar bears by getting a fish biscuit. Were the bears being trained to do something for the Others? And if so, what exactly were they doing for them?

Its all very confusing. But I hope we learn more about the experiments and the purpose of the animals this season. I'm glad to see a revisit to an old mystery in S3.

I wonder how many cages are there? Is it just the one that Sawyer is in and the one that Carl / Kate is in, or are there more? How big is the complex?

I wondered that too GB - obviously, at least I have miscalculated the size of the Others camp - it appeared pretty big by sheer cottages alone. And then they have that 'other' camp where we had seen Miss Klugh and the more poorly dressed 'Others.' I suspect that those two cages are just the beginning of the animal research operation.

The funniest scene in that episode was when Sawyer figured out the combination and got the machine to play the song and he was yelling and stuff. I laughed. lol.

I laughed when the "others" guy said, "Yeah, well the bears did it faster" and Sawyer piped up and said "Well how many of them were there?" LOL, that cracked me up.

The Others camp seems to be very large I think. Their living area seemed to be a run of the mill neighborhood. And then they have their fake base of operations with all the cheap, makeshift stuff and the dock. Then the beach where Fenry and Kate had tea. Then the cages and slave labor camp. And then the more than likely underwater place Jack is. Thats a lot of breathing room.

But I wonder how much teh Others get to relax with all the work they must do. And I may have to watch the episode again...but were there not other people working near Sawyer and Kate, as wella s the younger guy in the cage before Kate. Makes me wonder about more people being on the island. Maybe the others aren't so united (Juliette's book club w/o Fenry and all), or maybe the tailies survived after all, or maybe anything.

And where is Ms. Klugh? So many questions that will take solong to be answered...

Yeah, there were a lot of other people around. I wondered if they were just other survivors that they had taken from the tailies camp, and God knows where else.

Can I just say that those cages are waaaay to small to house polar bears?  Those enormous animals need a lot of space, to keep them there would have been very cruel.  In fact, I have a whole list of inconsistencies supporting my theory that this is a stupid storyline and no way could those bears survive there.  But the part where they tried to eat Mr. Eko was very realistic.  Not the crappy special effects, just the fact that they are voracious predators.

On topic, it seems to me it would unbelievably expensive and just plain stupid to transport polar bears all they way to the tropics just to see if they can learn to manipulate a simple system to get a reward.  Seems like fairly basic research and training of behaviors that is probably going on at any number of zoos and aquaria worldwide.    They were probably doing much more sinister research.  Perhaps it was not animal behavior at all.  Perhaps they were manipulating the magnetic force and somehow teleported the bears from the North Pole.  I dunno, just thinking out loud, but I can't help thing there is more to it than fish biscuits.

And BTW those bears need about 2 kg of fat per day to survive.  Perhaps less in the tropics, but that is still a hell of a lot of fish biscuits.  

Super - I actually thought they had arrived at the island via some sort of wormhole, kind of like how Yemi's plane appeared so far off course at Craphole. That is also my explanation for the Black Rock being on the island.

As for the cage size, we are all just assuming these cages were for the bears....perhaps it was for a smaller animal, one we have not seen yet?

Maybe the cages were for when the bears were younger? I'd imagine it's easier to work with them when they are still young... maybe once they grew older they moved them somewhere else.