Extra Credit 6/28

This article was interesting to me because of the difference in the polar bears eating habits as the seasons change. The polar bears have adapted overtime to make the geese go into the water because they swim slower than they run. During the summer, all of the polar bears have learned how to hunt geese, as opposed to the usual seals. They don’t hunt seals during the summer because the ice caps melt and they become harder to access. They cannot hunt geese during other seasons because the geese fly, but during summer the hot weather stops them from flying. Sometimes, the polar bears gain is not worth it because of the fact that running after the geese uses more calories than the actual geese. They would need to capture the geese within 12 seconds to achieve the full advantages of hunting it. Scientists have done studying proving that the polar bears have been hunting geese for an extended amount of time. They have fecal evidence that it took most bears 25 seconds to catch the geese, which is way over the amount needed to capture it. There are several explanations for this theory, one of them being that the water, allowing them to have more energy for the chase, was cooling them down. 

This article was significant to me because I didn’t realize that animals could have different eating habits depending on the seasons. This is interesting because it resembles the human behavior of changing our harvest as the seasons change. 

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21578638-diet-goose-flesh-may-help-polar-bears-survive-global-warming-sacred-geese