Newsflash out of Europe: Grass is green, the sky is blue, polar bears eat whatever they can kill.
Well, the first two aren’t exactly news… but the reliably leftist European media is all wound-up over a singular video of a singular polar bear killing then eating a singular reindeer. Of course, this must be even further evidence of so-called “climate change.”
Never mind that polar bears have quite the habit of killing and eating reindeer, seals, moose, orcas, dogs, ducks, berries, fish, hares, foxes, fresh kill, road kill, even rotted kill.
When needed, polar bears also have quite the history of cannibalism. If that isn’t disturbing enough, the largest and one of the most aggressive of all the bear species has been known to munch on the occasional human being.
Back to the topic at hand, a Polish weather research station captured the video in Norway’s northernmost sovereign land, the Svalbard archipelago, which is actually closer to the North Pole than it is to the nation’s capital city of Oslo.
Please keep in mind when most Americans think of polar bears, we normally think of the North Slope of Alaska and the norther territories of Canada. Don’t forget that polar bears number at a full 1,000 in the Svalbard Islands.
Anyhow, Breitbart.com is reporting of the liberal meltdown (no pun intended) of a video that’s surfaced (emphasis mine);
It appears “polar bears are being forced to change their eating habits” thanks to global warming, alarmists at Euronews announced Sunday.
The article cites video footage of a single polar bear chasing a reindeer into the water and killing it in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, warning that the incident represents “another stark indication of climate change.”
“Retreating sea ice leaves bears stranded on land for longer periods,” the article declares, and thus, “with fewer seals and a steadily rising reindeer population in Svalbard” polar bears are obliged to change their diet in favor of reindeer.
The video, taken by a research team from a Polish scientific station, suggests “polar bears are increasingly preying on land-based animals to make up for their limited access to their normal diet,” it asserts.
Eating reindeer has become a matter of both “necessity and opportunity” for polar bears, but “it is largely being seen as yet further evidence of a changing climate,” the article laments.
The University of Michigan notes the dietary flexibility of polar bears, asserting they will eat birds, mammals, fish, eggs, carrion, as they may become available.
A 1975 study of the eating habits of polar bears in the Southwest Hudson Bay found that bird remains “dominated the sample,” among which oldsquaw ducks were the most common. The study noted that polar bears in Svalbard also “take adult seabirds, young, and eggs when the opportunity arises.”
Research from the year 2000 similarly found polar bears are “opportunistic” and will prey on whatever presents itself.
The distribution of polar bears “over-laps with that of two large terrestrial mammals, reindeer and muskox,” the paper found, noting that polar bears have been reported to feed on both reindeer and muskox in Greenland.
The paper documented numerous cases of polar bears in Svalbard feeding on reindeer, with reports going back to 1945, which might suggest to a discerning reader that a single video of a polar bear eating a reindeer in 2021 hardly constitutes evidence of climate change or anything else.