Bear Facts
Feasting Bears
Life for a polar bear includes cycles of feasting and fasting.
Although the ringed seal is the polar bear's primary prey, Ursus maritimus is an opportunistic hunter, ever alert to other food sources.
On rare occasions, a whale carcass washed up on the beach will provide polar bears with a hearty banquet. On such occasions, dozens of hungry bears will gather to eat their fill.
Russian scientist Nikita Ovsyanikov once observed roughly 100 polar bears concentrated like a herd around a gray whale carcass. The carcass had washed up on a shoal near the beach, forcing the bears to jump into the water to get a meal.
Ovsyanikov has also seen as many as fourteen polar bears eating shoulder-to-shoulder at a single walrus carcass. (An adult male walrus is surprisingly large, weighing up to 2,500 lbs./1,100 kg.)
Though one bear may "own" a large carcass, he will not object to sharing with others, particularly if a supplicant follows proper protocol.
Proper begging behavior includes a submissive, low-to-the-ground approach, followed by a slow circle around the carcass and nose-touching with the bear in charge.
Groups of beluga whales or narwhals will sometimes become trapped in what the Inuit call a savsatt, a small opening in an expanse of pack ice. When this happens, the marine mammals become easy prey for the bears.
Alaskan marine biologist Lloyd Lowrey once observed a group of polar bears hunting belugas at a savsatt in the northern Bering Sea. Although the exact number was hard to determine because of the snow drifts, he estimated that the bears had captured at least forty whales.
In the spring of 1999, roughly fifty beluga whales became trapped in a savsatt near Canada's Ellesmere Island. Witnesses reported that as many as thirteen polar bears would gather at the ice edge at a time, waiting to pounce on a surfacing whale.
Such a catch provides the bears with a calorie boost. Beluga whales, though smaller than walruses, weigh up to 1,320 pounds (600 kg). Narwhals can reach 2,650 pounds (1,200 kg).
Any parts of the kill not consumed by polar bears will be eaten by scavenging arctic foxes or glaucous gulls.
Bird eggs, too, sometimes provide polar bears with a feast. Fred Bruemmer writes that a polar bear once raided a cache of at least a thousand eider duck eggs collected by a group of Inuit. Their leader, Ooloopie Killiktee, who told him the story, laughed at the memory. "Happy bear!" he said.
Sources: A is for Arctic by Wayne Lynch (Firefly Books, Willowdale, ON, 1996); Arctic Memories by Fred Bruemmer (Key Porter Books, Toronto, 1993); Polar Bears: Living with the White Bear by Nikita Ovsyanikov (Voyageur Press, Stillwater, MN, 1996); Polar Bears by Nikita Ovsyanikov (WorldLife Library, Voyageur Press, 1998) Polar Bears by Ian Stirling (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1988); Reuters News, June, 1999.
Although the ringed seal is the polar bear's primary prey, Ursus maritimus is an opportunistic hunter, ever alert to other food sources.
On rare occasions, a whale carcass washed up on the beach will provide polar bears with a hearty banquet. On such occasions, dozens of hungry bears will gather to eat their fill.
Russian scientist Nikita Ovsyanikov once observed roughly 100 polar bears concentrated like a herd around a gray whale carcass. The carcass had washed up on a shoal near the beach, forcing the bears to jump into the water to get a meal.
Ovsyanikov has also seen as many as fourteen polar bears eating shoulder-to-shoulder at a single walrus carcass. (An adult male walrus is surprisingly large, weighing up to 2,500 lbs./1,100 kg.)
Though one bear may "own" a large carcass, he will not object to sharing with others, particularly if a supplicant follows proper protocol.
Proper begging behavior includes a submissive, low-to-the-ground approach, followed by a slow circle around the carcass and nose-touching with the bear in charge.
Groups of beluga whales or narwhals will sometimes become trapped in what the Inuit call a savsatt, a small opening in an expanse of pack ice. When this happens, the marine mammals become easy prey for the bears.
Alaskan marine biologist Lloyd Lowrey once observed a group of polar bears hunting belugas at a savsatt in the northern Bering Sea. Although the exact number was hard to determine because of the snow drifts, he estimated that the bears had captured at least forty whales.
In the spring of 1999, roughly fifty beluga whales became trapped in a savsatt near Canada's Ellesmere Island. Witnesses reported that as many as thirteen polar bears would gather at the ice edge at a time, waiting to pounce on a surfacing whale.
Such a catch provides the bears with a calorie boost. Beluga whales, though smaller than walruses, weigh up to 1,320 pounds (600 kg). Narwhals can reach 2,650 pounds (1,200 kg).
Any parts of the kill not consumed by polar bears will be eaten by scavenging arctic foxes or glaucous gulls.
Bird eggs, too, sometimes provide polar bears with a feast. Fred Bruemmer writes that a polar bear once raided a cache of at least a thousand eider duck eggs collected by a group of Inuit. Their leader, Ooloopie Killiktee, who told him the story, laughed at the memory. "Happy bear!" he said.
Sources: A is for Arctic by Wayne Lynch (Firefly Books, Willowdale, ON, 1996); Arctic Memories by Fred Bruemmer (Key Porter Books, Toronto, 1993); Polar Bears: Living with the White Bear by Nikita Ovsyanikov (Voyageur Press, Stillwater, MN, 1996); Polar Bears by Nikita Ovsyanikov (WorldLife Library, Voyageur Press, 1998) Polar Bears by Ian Stirling (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1988); Reuters News, June, 1999.
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