Polar Bears

[Stan Rogers]

Jokes aside, I find them to be pretty animals, though I'd never want to be near one aside from a zoo setting.

They are beautiful animals but very deadly in certain settings. A former coroner in Resolute Bay recounted to me that a man had been decapitated there one evening. the wound looked like it was performed with a knife it was that neatly done.
In those hamlets you must always be aware when you go outside and sightings news spreads very rapidly to be extra vigilant.

My cousin got thrown off a jobsite for feeding a polar bear an apple while he was standing on a scaffold. Because of his action, that bear possibly had to be put down as it would be back.

You are told if you ever happen to be in a situation where you meet a bear unexpectedly, head for the nearest shelter and start taking off your coat. It is illegal in Churchill Man. to lock your car incase someone needs it for emergency shelter. Car theft is not possible as there are no roads out of town.
The logic is, while you are running for your life and shedding clothes, the bear will stop to sniff the discarded items giving you time to escape. Other stratagems endorsed is to quietly walk away obliquely to the bear . I never want to be in that situ but me... I'm running !

[Meliva]

Yeah i recall a neat rhyme about surviving bear attacks that references polar bears.

If the bear is black, fight back, if it's brown lie down, if it's white say good night. Course, I'd rather not be near any bear unless there be a barrier between us .

Hopefully that bear didn't get put down. Very dangerous to feed deadly wild animals though, that makes them more used to humans and more likely to hang around. Not a problem if it's like a stray cat, or most birds, but anything that could seriously hurt or kill a human is not something you should treat like a pet. I never could understand why some folks keep pets that could literally kill them.

[Dmanwuzhere]

i like grizzlies better but i wouldnt think of getting closer than eyesight

[Stan Rogers]

The Kermode bear is a unique, rare white bear that resides primarily in north western British Columbia. I would not ever been aware of the species had I not on occasion to do some work there.
They are apparently, a black bear with a recessive gene that gives them a white coat but only exist in that part of the world .

[Mack]

mini polar bears lol

[The Lamb]

The Kermode bear is a unique, rare white bear that resides primarily in north western British Columbia. I would not ever been aware of the species had I not on occasion to do some work there.
They are apparently, a black bear with a recessive gene that gives them a white coat but only exist in that part of the world .

I saw a special on that, but they would not give the location of the albino black bear because they didnt want hunters heading there, that was good to see

So you may or not know i lived in Alaska for a few years. I had to go to Kodiak Island alot for work. On one of my trips a client of mine brought me to the Buskin River to do some salmon fishing, as we started to clear a hill I saw a huge Grizzly eating fish across a 10 foot (at that spot) river. I reached for my side arm and my client who was Aleut told me not to worry, it was a Kodiak Brown bear and as we crested the hill there were more locals fishing still.

I asked him what we should do if he comes here, he said "let him have your fish" and laughed.

The bear never bothered us and soon after we were fishing just walked into the woods. So why am i bringing this up? The Kodiak is a grizzly that was cut off from the main land after the sea levels rose when the continental ice sheets started melting (Kodiak is a huge island) and found an abundance of fish and thats what it eats. It has adapted to the mostly low fat diet and still is HUUUGGEEEE.

Grizzly's are brown bears that live more inland and eats what ever it can find when its hungry. In Alaska they eat berry's, animals, once and a while a person dumb enough to not own a gun and get in its way, and ive seen pictures of Grizzlys eating black bears.

What do you think would happen in the fish runs stopped in Kodiak? My guess is they would go back to eating anything they can just like the rest of the brown bears even though they have adapted to a mostly fish diet. I say this because my honest thought is that polar bears may resort back to eating anything just like the rest of the brown bears if it needs to.

That adaptation hasn't been around that long and happened really quick geologically speaking.

[DezNutz]

i like grizzlies better but i wouldnt think of getting closer than eyesight

As long as that eye sight is at least 100 yards or includes a steel bar barrier.

I personally think Grizzles are one of the most fearsome and powerful animals on the planet. Completely fascinating creatures.

[Stan Rogers]

Aye... all true but I think in the arctic and sub-arctic, there is very limited food sources. Bears being omnivores by nature can survive on berries, insects taken from rotting tree stumps and a whole host of things that is available below the tree line.
Yea..brown bears are just fat, well fed lazy grizz and brown bear would revert back to what their cousins in the mountains feed on but the polar bear does not get that chance.

Its diet will consist mainly on marine mammals that live primarily in the water.
They lose that hunting ground, they can't just swing onto something else.
Mainly because there is nothing else. No berries maybe a char or grayling if you in the right place.
An arctic fox or hare...forget it, They never catch it and even if they could, it would not provide the fat needed to get through a really lean summer.
Its always the largest critters that seem to suffer first in times of climatic stress.