A video that recently captured a polar bear chasing a reindeer into the sea before killing it went viral after being shared on various social media platforms.
As indicated in a ScienceAlert report, researchers in Hornsund, Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic ocean, spotted a polar bear that pursued a reindeer into the sea before dragging it ashore and eventually killing it. After two days, the same bear was seen beside another fresh reindeer, making its second kill.
The scientists' observations are the first detailed account of an entire and successful hunt of the polar bear, specifically a Svalbard reindeer.
They follow 13 other previous reports of polar bears preying and hunting on reindeer on the same archipelago between the early 1980s and late 1990s.
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Polar Bears return to Churchill, the Polar Bear capital of the world, to hunt for seals on the icepack every year at this time and remain on the icepack feeding on seals until the Spring thaw.
Polar Bear Diets
Such previous reports are far from the first accounts of polar bears that changed their diets. Usually, in the months the sea is frozen, it appears, they are enjoying a diet of offshore seals.
The bears' supplementary food sources during the leaner summer months have been known for decades. They usually gorge on seabird eggs and feed at the Churchill dump (a rubbish and recycling facility in Hudson Bay). However, similar reports of terrestrial feeding have become more frequent in recent years.
From following and pursuing Canadian caribou, Arctic char fishing and capturing geese and rodents to foraging on vegetation and guarding human refuse areas, polar bears have tried to consume a lot of things. However, the feasibility of such onshore food sources is doubtful as a long-term tactic.
Study Finding
In their study of scavenging on Mitvik Island, Canada's eider duck, published in The Royal Society journal, scientists discovered polar bears were seabird eggs' inefficient predators, such that the energy an individual bear is gaining from eggs may be less than formerly believed.
That is because they exert more energy in finding eggs than what they get when consuming them. Equally, other studies have discovered that polar bears' consumption of earthly food has been inadequate to recompense for decreased hunting chances out on the ice.
The Threat of Climate Change
Polar bears have developed to be marine mammals' highly efficient predators. They support themselves on a "fat-heavy diet" and depend on an ice-based target or victim, mainly ringed and bearded seals. Consequently, they are intensely threatened by a warming climate, the study, originally reported in The Conversation, indicates.
With rising temperatures worldwide, Arctic sea ice melts earlier during summer and refreezing later during winter. More so, as the ice-free periods turn longer, polar bears spend longer time on land minus access to their primary food.
Essentially, their condition has been made worse by other factors. Recent research showed that the polar bears' energy demands are higher than previously assumed.
With shorter time on the sea ice and less seal fat to eat, polar bears will find it harder to meet their energy needs, resulting in higher mortality rates. Simultaneously, higher Arctic wind speeds may still make hunting seals more difficult.
Related report about the polar bear hunting an adult Caribou is shown on Field & Stream's YouTube video below:
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