Polar bears often hunt seals on sea ice in the Arctic Circle, but due to shrinking ice they are searching for new prey and coming to land.
Now, a team of biologists from the Polish polar station, located in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, have managed to record the first images of a polar bear hunting and eating a reindeer. The deadly hunt began when an adult female polar bear went after an adult reindeer that tried to escape the predator by swimming in Isbjørnhamna Bay. However, it took the polar bear just over a minute to reach its prey, drowning it and then dragging it to shore, where it gave a good account of its meat .
“The prey and the attacker fought for a time, as parts of each animal appeared alternately on the surface,” the authors wrote in the study. “The bear then turned the reindeer around, repeatedly submerging it for about 15 minutes, even though it was already dead .”
The scientists watched as after eating, the bear covered the leftover remains with rocks and headed to a nearby area to sleep for about 12 hours before returning for the rest of its feast. However, in his absence, foxes and birds fed on some of the remains.
The team believes that this behavior is not just due to the loss of sea ice, but that the Arctic has seen an increase in reindeer populations in the last three decades and they are more accessible to endangered predators.
Referencia: Stempniewicz, L., Kulaszewicz, I. & Aars, J. Yes, they can: polar bears Ursus maritimus successfully hunt Svalbard reindeer Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus. Polar Biol 44, 2199–2206 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02954-w
