Caught Eating Deer In Video, Evidence Of Climate Change Also Experienced By Polar Bears

Illustration of a polar bear hunting. (Wikimedia Commons/Lysogeny)

JAKARTA - Rare footage of polar bears chasing deer into the water and killing them could be another clear indication of the impact of climate change on Earth.

Quoting Euronews November 28, after a female polar bear drowned a stag victim, she dragged it ashore in a motion that demonstrated the changing diet of a bear in Norway's Svalbard Islands.

The video was taken by a team of researchers from a nearby Polish scientific station who witnessed it happen, capturing the spectacle on camera for the first time.

Retreating sea ice keeps bears stranded on land for longer periods of time. So, with seals dwindling and the wildebeest population steadily increasing on Svalbard, it appears that polar bears are being forced to change their eating habits.

The incident is seen as one of a series of observations showing polar bears are increasingly preying on land animals to make up for their limited access to their normal diet.

On Svalbard, more than 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole and where signs warn of polar bear danger, some 300 bears live alongside about 20,000 wildebeest.

There are now indications that polar bears have hunted deer more frequently in recent decades.

The fact that bears are stranded on land and that wildebeest numbers have continued to increase on Svalbard due to the 1925 hunting ban, has resulted in an unusual phenomenon.

To note, eating deer has become a necessity and an opportunity for polar bears. But it is mostly seen as further evidence of climate change.