They are rare but they can be dropped by the Cubs. The problem is the Cubs seem to scatter when they know you have hunted them. I have looted a total of 8 good pelts but I am still looking for 5 more. Aaaarrrgggghhhh. They should drop more often. One special note that someone else said. If you bash them, or engage them in fighting, you get little to nothing. You must kill them in one shot and with Magic better. If no magic, then I don't konw. Sorry...
While hunting in BB with my 13 druid I decided to head to Everfrost to get a polar bear skin for the leatherfoot cap quest.
So I started looking for Polarbears and bypassed all the polar bear Cubs. I headed towards the river killing every polar bear I saw. In 30 minutes I'd kiled only 7 of them and they dropped nothing but meat and a ruined pelts and I wasnt getting any exp for most. Then I remembered a post in here about getting the skins more frequently from cubs....
So I headed to the newbie area right infront of Halas and there were tons of cubs everywhere! Using Ignite ( 36 Dam at my level ) I was instantly blowing them to bits (was very fun) and In 10 minutes I had looted two polar bear skins, a medium bear pelt and low bear pelt. And killed off about 10 or 12.
In my experience animals, spiders etc. give better loot if they are kiled in one shot. Specially with skins. Maybe all that slashing "ruins" the pelts eh?
Common loot is a ruined wolf pelt. -- Uncommon loot is Polar Bear Skin (for Leather armor quest), Low Quality and Medium Quality Bear Pelts (obviously, the MQ pelts are a bit rarer.) -- Rare loot is High Quality Bear Pelt.
These bears are a beginning tailors dream - they drop ruined bear pelts like mad. And if you can't wear it, you can sell the patchwork back to the vendor for a small profit or (as I do) sell it to Newbies in the Everfrost area.
I'm a tailor, and I'm not quite skilled enough to go wasting the LQ and HQ pelts, otherwise I'd hunt the little bears. But what I do need is xp. That way i can be good enough to use those pelts. I get ZERO xp off cubs. So when you're out hunting for good pelts, if you happen to find dozens of ruined pelts, bring them to me and I'll make you some armor. Hey, the armor sells for more then the pelts. *shrug*
Nebora Lvl 6 Barb. Tailor Halas The Nameless server
I picked up 10 white pelts form Polar Bear cubs in a hour. Ten! Of course I killed about 40 of them in that time so it can happen. Just sit there and keep fighting. The law of averges is on your side.
I don't know about HQ pelts BUT, I got 16 WHITE pelts of CUBS in the newbie area in EverFrost, which I started killing at lvl 2 and I used them on quests NO PROBLEM! I got tons a low lvl armor from the quests and GREAT EXP and the white pelts droped about 1 white pelt every 15 - mins... and I was getting exp the whole time!
The polar bear cubs drop Ruined Bear Pelts... which are a far cry from the HQ bear pelts that you need for other things. I've worked up to level 6 killing mostly just the cubs, and have yet to see a HQ pelt.
I'd like to clear this up a bit if I can. I spent the better part of 2 days hunting in the EverFrost Peaks. Mostly hunting the Polar Bear Cubs. This is what they drop:
If you are hunting polar bears to collect HQ pelts, don't waste your time trying to find them. Hunt the cubs in the newbie zone, they are far more common, and drop the same pelt twice as often as the adults.