08/13/2025
A polar bear’s rare feast....what’s she scavenging?
In the icy Arctic, a female polar bear, weighing around 300kg, roams the sea ice, her history shaped by millennia of adaptation. Evolving from brown bears, her ancestors developed thick fur and blubber to survive in the harshest cold, making her a skilled hunter of seals and an expert in the Arctic’s challenging environment.
But this time, she’s perched on an unusual feast—the carcass of a male s***m whale. S***m whales, deep-sea giants, occasionally strand themselves, offering a rare source of food for polar bears. The bear feasts on the whale’s rich blubber, a valuable resource in a landscape where ice and prey are increasingly scarce due to climate change. Her scavenging behavior highlights an opportunistic feeding strategy, essential for survival as the Arctic ecosystem changes.
Her presence on this rare meal is a striking reminder of how the Arctic’s wildlife must adapt to a world in flux, where traditional hunting grounds and food sources are disappearing. It’s a story of resilience, but also of the challenges polar bears face as their environment warms and shrinks.
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