Speaker 1: Good morning everybody. It's Saturday and it's Chuck, and that
Speaker 1: means it's time for a select episode where we hand
Speaker 1: pick and curate some of our favorite episode of the
Speaker 1: years to be rereleased on Saturdays. In case you don't
Speaker 1: have anything going on. This one goes all the way
Speaker 1: back to September. It's about polar Bears. They are super
Speaker 1: fascinating and cool and you will walk away with more
Speaker 1: than one dinner party fact that you can throw with
Speaker 1: your friends how polar Bears work. Right now, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Chuck Bryant scratching out a significant amount of this article,
Speaker 1: like literally as we started recording. That's important stuff. There's
Speaker 1: like numbers and dates and way eats and temperatures and
Speaker 1: that that's it's important stuff you just scratched out. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's all covered in the body of the
Speaker 1: text of the article, though, well, I mean that's one
Speaker 1: way to do an intro. Is anybody in journalism can
Speaker 1: tell you you can write the article and then go
Speaker 1: back and summarize. If you're an intro. I've never been
Speaker 1: partial that the intro to me is just like this
Speaker 1: stream of consciousness. It tells you where the rest of
Speaker 1: the article is going to go because you don't know, man,
Speaker 1: because it's all jazz baby. Uh yeah. Polar bears. Polar
Speaker 1: bears another polar bear club. Although they may have clubs,
Speaker 1: they're one of the least studied mammal populations on the planet.
Speaker 1: Because it's cold, no one wants to go hang out
Speaker 1: and watch them, yeah, pretty much, and because it's also
Speaker 1: extremely dangerous to to study polar bears up close and personal.
Speaker 1: Yeah they look cuddly, um, but they will, especially New
Speaker 1: well yeah remember New. Yeah, I got a little bit
Speaker 1: about New very sad. But you're gonna say they look
Speaker 1: cute and cuddly, but don't leave his hanging. Well, you
Speaker 1: go up to hug one like you want to, and
Speaker 1: you get your face eating. Oh yeah, if you're lucky,
Speaker 1: that's all that happens, you know. I saw pictures of
Speaker 1: a guy who um survived a polar bear attack. Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness. Yeah, he was messed up like I guess
Speaker 1: it was still attach, but three quarters of his scalp
Speaker 1: was now flipped back double like there's a whole clear
Speaker 1: through his achilles tendon and his ankle, so like as
Speaker 1: achilles tendon was intact, and then the front of the
Speaker 1: top of his the front of his ankle was intact,
Speaker 1: but in between the two was gone. That could have
Speaker 1: been a claw, poke or a fang. Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: have been like flicking it with its thumb and middle finger.
Speaker 1: Very strong. It's one of nature's cruelest things to an animal.
Speaker 1: So huggable, uh and deadly. So yeah, you know if
Speaker 1: you're if you hug up polar bear, it's bad news. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like one of those black widows that marry and kill. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: that's just my interpretation of polar bears. You know, you
Speaker 1: mean the ursus maritimus. Yeah, and maritimes is Uh, it's
Speaker 1: a legitimate thing to call it because technically a polar
Speaker 1: bear is a sea animal, a sea mammal. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they spend most of their time actually on the sea,
Speaker 1: that's right, and in the sea sometimes, as we'll find out. Um, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we're knee deep in this thing. Huh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you skip the intro. Uh. So the polar bear
Speaker 1: what they think? Um, and I enjoy our animal casts
Speaker 1: a lot, and there's some of my favorite ones. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say that although the polar bear doesn't
Speaker 1: despite its huggability, doesn't compete with the jellyfish with octopus. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's up there. Sure it is because you can
Speaker 1: hug a jellyfish, you know, I than an octopus. That's
Speaker 1: a great hug. Yeah, eight times as good. They won't
Speaker 1: let go. I guess four times is good. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: so the polar bear two times is good because polar
Speaker 1: bear has four. No, I mean as a human hug.
Speaker 1: Uh so, Jerry even like that one. Um. So the
Speaker 1: polar bear evolved, as best as we know, a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred thousand years ago from the brown bear. Actually,
Speaker 1: I saw the scientific consensus between five million and six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand years really because I saw the two thousand
Speaker 1: all over the place, did you really? Yeah? But it
Speaker 1: might be one of those you know how the internet is,
Speaker 1: Like I think Science Magazine used the term scientific consensus.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so I was like through done the gauntlet.
Speaker 1: Uh well, let's just say let's go with a scientific consensus, okay, um,
Speaker 1: and not our own article on our own website. But
Speaker 1: they did evolved from the brown bear. Uh, they think
Speaker 1: and um. One of the ways that they back this
Speaker 1: up is by saying, polar bear can go have sex
Speaker 1: with a brown bear and they can make a baby
Speaker 1: bear and that bear can actually have babies. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: means everything jibs. Do you remember? I think it was
Speaker 1: our evolution in Isolation episode that was a good one.
Speaker 1: We talked about speciation events, and we talked about this
Speaker 1: how the how the brown bear just kept ranging further
Speaker 1: and further north, and as as they're kind of habitat changed,
Speaker 1: they actually evolved to too, into a different species, the
Speaker 1: polar bear. I remember that now, but I remember a
Speaker 1: species or a speciation event taking place when the two
Speaker 1: groups could no longer reproduce. That was my memory of it,
Speaker 1: but I guess not because I went back in double check.
Speaker 1: It's like, polar bears are different species, but it can.
Speaker 1: It can reproduce with brown bears. And it does make
Speaker 1: sense because humans and Neanderthals or neanderthals if you're a
Speaker 1: pet ant um could could reproduce and have fertile offspring,
Speaker 1: and there are definitely two different species of humans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, right, Yeah, they were, well, you know, occasionally
Speaker 1: people get together and have a few drinks and science
Speaker 1: is created, you know. Yeah. Yeah, uh so there are
Speaker 1: way more um brown bears, everyone knows. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk a lot about this. That the polar bear. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure the official designation. I don't think it's officially listed. Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on where you are, yeah, as the official
Speaker 1: listings is threatened or you know, the like, it depends
Speaker 1: on the country it's in. Yeah, but they are they're
Speaker 1: not doing great. There's only about twenty five thousand polar bears,
Speaker 1: and their habitat is shrinking literally physically shrinking. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the big problem is that the the melting of Arctic
Speaker 1: sea ice as we'll see as the Arctic sea ice
Speaker 1: is where they live. They live on ice floating out
Speaker 1: in the Arctic ocean, um, and they don't like to
Speaker 1: be on land. When they are on land, it's a
Speaker 1: problem for them. So the decrease in Arctic sea ice
Speaker 1: that's going on because the climate change UM is affecting
Speaker 1: them tremendously and affecting the rest of the ecosystem. But yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely because UM say, like if they get stranded on land,
Speaker 1: they start hunting on like for land mammals, which affects
Speaker 1: the ecosystem, and that now their competition that's not normally
Speaker 1: there for for prey. You know, there's all sorts of
Speaker 1: ripple effects that are coming out of it. But one
Speaker 1: thing I did see is that the the polar bears
Speaker 1: that are really really far north are actually benefiting from
Speaker 1: the melting um ice. Oh really, because it's easier for
Speaker 1: them to hunt now because there is just less area
Speaker 1: to cover. Um it's the ice is thinner. Oh, so
Speaker 1: they can hunt more easily on it. Interesting. Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: well it's a good thing you said north, because you're
Speaker 1: not gonna find polar bears, but the South Pole where
Speaker 1: Santa lives and penguins and Santa lives at the north
Speaker 1: north Pole with the polar bears. That's right. We've all
Speaker 1: seen the Coca Cola commercials. Yeah, but that has penguins
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, the penguins and polar bears would never meet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, because that maybe at a zoo. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is true. They had polar bears at the San Diego Zoo.
Speaker 1: There's a polar bear in China in a mall in
Speaker 1: China that has a zoo, and it is one of
Speaker 1: the saddest things I've ever heard of. I signed a
Speaker 1: petition last night to free it. His name is Pizza
Speaker 1: and it is It's the Pizza the polar Bear. It's
Speaker 1: the it's the saddest. I think it's build as the
Speaker 1: saddest pole. They're bear on the planet. Man, it's so sad.
Speaker 1: Look into it, chuck outside the Yeah, I guarantee you will.
Speaker 1: And you know what, I bet we could get a
Speaker 1: lot of people to sign that petition. We'll see if
Speaker 1: it matters. The petitions matter. Do they make a difference? Uh?
Speaker 1: I think if they're accompanied with the right like press,
Speaker 1: like media pressure, right or like a mafia thug right
Speaker 1: to deliver the papers. I got a petition for you.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you read it. Uh So. Polar bears
Speaker 1: do live only in the Northern Hemisphere. Those twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand are in nineteen distinct populations in five just five countries,
Speaker 1: including the United States. Yeah, it's funny because their habitat
Speaker 1: is at the top of the world where five countries
Speaker 1: basically come together. Well Alaska, yeah, that's the U. S part.
Speaker 1: Canada obviously. I think two thirds of all polar bears
Speaker 1: actually live in Canada. Even though they if you asked
Speaker 1: him that, they wouldn't be able to tell you. Russia
Speaker 1: is another big one, Norway in Greenland, that is correct, uh,
Speaker 1: And it is tough living up there for humans, but
Speaker 1: not for polar bears. They love it. They're well adapted
Speaker 1: over the years. Just supposedly if they run for any
Speaker 1: bit of time, they have to like stop and lay
Speaker 1: down because they'll overheat and they will exhaust themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: identified a lot when I was reading this with polar
Speaker 1: bear like, I kind of like these guys. They are
Speaker 1: incredibly well adapted. Um, which is another reason why I
Speaker 1: think they don't think it's any less than six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand years that they evolved from brown bears, because it
Speaker 1: would take so long for these just they're really different
Speaker 1: from brown bears. Like brown bears are basically herbivores, polar
Speaker 1: bears are carnivores. They seal blubber like brown bears eat
Speaker 1: berries in the occasional human on accident maybe, but polar
Speaker 1: bears are like, give me some seals, I want them.
Speaker 1: I bet they would eat some berries if someone offered
Speaker 1: them up for dessert. Maybe, but there are no berries, right,
Speaker 1: you know, But it would take a lot because they
Speaker 1: get kind of big and they need a lot of
Speaker 1: fat to ward off the cold. Well, yeah, and they
Speaker 1: have a lot of it. They have two layers of
Speaker 1: fur and then blubber, full blubber layer. That's about four
Speaker 1: and a half inches thick of just blubber. Yes, supposedly,
Speaker 1: like of their weight at any given time or when
Speaker 1: they're fully um developed or nourished, is a blubber was
Speaker 1: their own fat. Since you mentioned the weight, we'll go
Speaker 1: ahead and throw some stats out. Adult males eight or
Speaker 1: nine ft. Yeah, apparently that's the biggest bear. The polar
Speaker 1: bear is the biggest of the bears from what I understand,
Speaker 1: not the bear and Stein bears. Barren Stain. Adult females
Speaker 1: six to eight feet and the male's way up to
Speaker 1: thirt hundred pounds nine pounds. Yeah, that's that's intimidating. It
Speaker 1: is you've seen lost. I haven't this article mentioned it though,
Speaker 1: of course, because it was probably written. When these stats
Speaker 1: are accurate. The females can get up to about seven
Speaker 1: hundred pounds those claus I mentioned about two inches, and um,
Speaker 1: they live about twenty years. Um. Yeah, I was surprised
Speaker 1: by that. That's really short twenty years. Sure, I didn't
Speaker 1: think that was too bad for a bear. Oh, I
Speaker 1: thought it was very short. What do you think it's
Speaker 1: a good bear span for your lifespan, like fourty or
Speaker 1: fifty years. Yeah, that's what I want to see for
Speaker 1: a bear. Well, we all do. Let's be honest. Twenty years.
Speaker 1: It's just like live fast, die young type age, you know.
Speaker 1: So there pause which we mentioned the clause. They have
Speaker 1: these big, beautiful, fat round paws that act like snow shoes,
Speaker 1: and they walk and they spread out when they walk
Speaker 1: on the on the ice and sort of distribute their weight.
Speaker 1: And in fact, when they're on thin ice they even
Speaker 1: spread their arms out wider. It's very cute. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they have these little uh papilla on their bottom paws
Speaker 1: is old nubs because ice is slippery, and they the
Speaker 1: front paws are actually slightly webbed for swimming. It's amazing. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, it's it's a sea bear. It is
Speaker 1: the Maritimus ursa maritimus. So let's let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of its like actual habits and the things it does
Speaker 1: after a break. You want to, yes, Chuck, you mentioned
Speaker 1: their fur, right, so you know their furs translucent. That's right,
Speaker 1: they're not. It's not another episode at some point, probably
Speaker 1: the evolving isolation one, or maybe it's translucent or by
Speaker 1: or maybe the butterflies wings one. What is I can't
Speaker 1: remember what it's called iridescence. Iridescence. That was a really
Speaker 1: interesting episode two. Um, but yeah, they're there there. Um.
Speaker 1: Fur is actually it's translucent because it's hollow, and it's
Speaker 1: hollow because it traps air and then their body heat
Speaker 1: can warm the air. It's kind of like, um, have
Speaker 1: you ever camped when it was cold and all you
Speaker 1: need is one of those little thin blow up mats
Speaker 1: because your body heat warms the air underneath it. Thermarrest,
Speaker 1: it's a brand name, but sure, right, okay, so it's
Speaker 1: the same thing. But this is their fur that's doing that. Um.
Speaker 1: And since it's hollow and translucent, it actually scatters all
Speaker 1: colors of light and creates this white appearance like a
Speaker 1: quartzid or something like that. It's amazing. So they're not
Speaker 1: actually white coated in white fur. It's all an illusion. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you saw a polar bear in New York City,
Speaker 1: it would be the color of street garbage, right, like
Speaker 1: a chamelelee it's not true. Street garbage color color is
Speaker 1: that well, you mustard, it's like a pizza box, and
Speaker 1: they'll be some recycling and then just some just New
Speaker 1: York apartment to trit us, it's like the colors of
Speaker 1: the rainbow. Alright, So the fur is um not all
Speaker 1: over their body. The parts of their body that don't
Speaker 1: have this thick insulation and this blubber, the tail and
Speaker 1: the muzzle and the ears are adapted to be small
Speaker 1: because it's not as insulated with that blubber. So um,
Speaker 1: it requires less energy to heat and it has less
Speaker 1: surface to to lose heat from. Right, That's right. So yeah,
Speaker 1: these guys are like incredibly well adapted for their environment,
Speaker 1: which is really saying something because their environment is about
Speaker 1: is inhospitable the mammal is you can imagine. Um. They
Speaker 1: are routinely comfortable and apparently have no heat loss whatsoever
Speaker 1: at temperatures of like negative what was it, like like
Speaker 1: fifty fahrenheit negative fifty that's the like, that's the temperature
Speaker 1: they're they're comfortable in um and they actually, yeah, they
Speaker 1: experienced no change in body temperature a temperature of negative
Speaker 1: thirty four degrees fahrenheit which is negative thirty seven celsius. Amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just like it's unaffected by it. They're that well
Speaker 1: suited to the environment. So we mentioned them walking. They
Speaker 1: can walk a great distances up to thirty I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: twenty miles KOs a day for days and days in
Speaker 1: a row. And uh, they have been tracked swimming up
Speaker 1: to sixty miles, which is amazing. Okay. One other thing
Speaker 1: I saw um a Canadian geographic article, which is a
Speaker 1: thing okay, uh, and they get this was a two
Speaker 1: thou twelve article and they mentioned a recent study so
Speaker 1: probably two thousand, two thousand and eleven maybe two twelve.
Speaker 1: Study found polar bears swimming as a result of climate
Speaker 1: change um up to six d eighty seven kilometers. That's
Speaker 1: four six miles. That's to get from ice to ice.
Speaker 1: Y man, that's sad, four hundred and twenty six miles.
Speaker 1: These things are just swimming like well, I don't think
Speaker 1: they're supposed to swim that far. No, definitely not, you know, no,
Speaker 1: but they can. They'll do it. It's amazing. And they're
Speaker 1: doing that to eat that sweet sweet seal blubber. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And plus I mean the sea ice is their habitat.
Speaker 1: This is where they live, it's where they sleep, it's
Speaker 1: and it's where they hunt most most importantly. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: they don't. Another big differ prints with the brown bears.
Speaker 1: They don't hibernate like uh, the your average bear. Uh
Speaker 1: you like that. Uh, female sort of semi hibernate when
Speaker 1: they're kind of pre and post pregnancy, but it's not
Speaker 1: true hibernation. And like the biological sense you want to
Speaker 1: talk about mating, Oh sure, specifically polar bear mating. So again,
Speaker 1: they they are a fairly not closely studied um mammal population. Right,
Speaker 1: So scientists actually aren't entirely sure how females signal to
Speaker 1: males that they're um ready to reproduce. And the reason
Speaker 1: why is, um, the females don't appear to actually go
Speaker 1: into any kind of heat. They have something called induced ovulation, right,
Speaker 1: which is once they're mating, they start to ovulate. It.
Speaker 1: Actually the intercourse is what causes the ovulation, right, and
Speaker 1: not always sometimes it takes several times. Yeah, you've gotta
Speaker 1: be good, you gotta know what you're doing, right, um,
Speaker 1: and once the once they actually do um, I guess sure,
Speaker 1: once the once the egg is fertilized. The embryo doesn't
Speaker 1: actually start developing right away either. Yeah, that's super interesting.
Speaker 1: It's an eight month gestation. But the first four months
Speaker 1: it's just sitting there. Yeah, just the fetus is just
Speaker 1: like waiting while the mom eats and eats and eats
Speaker 1: and prepares for that long uh, that long period as
Speaker 1: we'll see where where you know, she has a little
Speaker 1: cub and uh yeah, a couple of couple of times,
Speaker 1: usually twins, thank you. You know all you've seen polar
Speaker 1: bear cubs, right, it's pretty adorable twins. They're born blind,
Speaker 1: without teeth. They probably make cute little noises. They're not insulated,
Speaker 1: so they need mom. Like if polar bear mom dies
Speaker 1: right away, polar bear cubs will not survive. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's their toasts. Zero chance. Yeah, like you said, they're
Speaker 1: born blind and without teeth. They've really thin for no insulation.
Speaker 1: They weigh about a pound in her a foot long,
Speaker 1: which is really tiny for a bear that's going to
Speaker 1: grow into pounds. Um And yeah, that mom makes a
Speaker 1: den when she's um carrying her her embryos and starts
Speaker 1: to fatten up. She goes and makes a little winter
Speaker 1: den sometimes it's snow den, which, by the way, you
Speaker 1: should see that movie snowdon It's good. Yeah, the documentary
Speaker 1: of the movie. Well both yeah, yeah, okay. Um, and
Speaker 1: so she'll make a little snow cave, snow den that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, um, or use an actual cave. But
Speaker 1: for the most part, she's usually just digging out a
Speaker 1: little space for herself. And then um, she'll give birth
Speaker 1: and then nurse the cubs for at least their first
Speaker 1: twenty months. Yeah, they have to hang out with mama
Speaker 1: for a while and drink that milk. Yeah, I think maybe, um,
Speaker 1: a couple of years, maybe up to four years they
Speaker 1: spend with mom, like learning to hunt and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Um. But yes, she doesn't leave the
Speaker 1: snow den for like the first um several months. Yeah,
Speaker 1: dad splits after a week, He's like, my work here
Speaker 1: is done. I might even go get someone else pregnant.
Speaker 1: They're not monogamous. The women, the women, the females, um,
Speaker 1: their lady lady bears. They they made successfully usually between
Speaker 1: the age of six and eight years old, and they
Speaker 1: only for mammal don't reproduce a lot, which is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons there's only two of them. They only
Speaker 1: have about five litters over their lifespan, whereas some mammals,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean they just have litter upon litter
Speaker 1: every year of multiple, multiple little cubs. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: another reason and why you know, a loss of the
Speaker 1: to the polar bear population is it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: They don't replace. Their replacement rate is kind of low,
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. And there could be you know, a
Speaker 1: battle over mating with a female because um, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's sparks out there. It's not the most happening scene
Speaker 1: for picking up. It's not a firm bar, it's not
Speaker 1: a ferm bar. Uh. So if that happens, they will fight.
Speaker 1: They won't kill each other. Yeah, I thought that was
Speaker 1: kind of me. Yeah, of course the human to me
Speaker 1: is like, they know that they're dwindling, so they won't
Speaker 1: kill each other. Of course it's not true at all.
Speaker 1: That's funny because the human and me was like they
Speaker 1: they're like, it's really tough out here, so we all
Speaker 1: got to stick together. Yeah, you'd like to think that. Um,
Speaker 1: but what they do is they will they will lower
Speaker 1: their head but pin their ears back and roar. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a lot of posturing um. But there could
Speaker 1: be like an injury that occurs fighting over who to
Speaker 1: mate with, right, but not to the death. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it happens occasionally. There's probably a jerk bear every
Speaker 1: now and then. You know, this feels threatened Todd, Yeah
Speaker 1: he's all on steroids. But when a death will happen
Speaker 1: is if anyone messes with those cubs, because Mama bear
Speaker 1: will take you down, like without thinking twice. Right, It's
Speaker 1: very sweet. So the little bears have been brought up
Speaker 1: by their mom. The twins Chuck and Buck, they are
Speaker 1: they have been brought up by their mom and raised
Speaker 1: to hunt, hunt, hunt, and uh now they know what
Speaker 1: they're doing. So if you could drop in on either
Speaker 1: one of those guys and actually there, I was really
Speaker 1: surprised to hear this. The males will like hang out
Speaker 1: with one another. Yeah, they're not necessarily territorial. Yeah, they'll
Speaker 1: even share a meal occasionally. Yeah, they have enough. Again,
Speaker 1: that's because they're like, it's tough out here, man. Come on,
Speaker 1: They're like, brother, can you spare a dime. I've had
Speaker 1: my hundred pounds of blubber today, which is literally how
Speaker 1: much they can eat. So um. When they hunt. They
Speaker 1: prefer ice, like a bit of ice, sea ice that
Speaker 1: they can sit on. And actually what they'll do is
Speaker 1: they look for holes in the ice. The main prey
Speaker 1: of the polar bear is the ringed seal. Yes, their favorite.
Speaker 1: They'll they'll eat other stuff. They'll eat just about anything,
Speaker 1: a whale, carcass, alive, beluga whale that they can catch, um,
Speaker 1: walrus is whatever, but they really go nuts for ringed seals. Okay,
Speaker 1: so um. Ringed seals have a thing where whenever it's um,
Speaker 1: the ice is thin enough for them to dig through.
Speaker 1: And by thin enough, we're talking like six feet right.
Speaker 1: The seal has these um basically appendages on its flippers
Speaker 1: that are sharp and they use it to carve holes
Speaker 1: through the sea ice. And these are the seals breathing holes.
Speaker 1: And they make about ten to fifteen of them every season,
Speaker 1: and then they'll keep them like open throughout the season.
Speaker 1: They maintain them. So they're hunting down there, they're eating
Speaker 1: their own stuff. They need to come up for air sometimes, well,
Speaker 1: polar bears stake these things out because they know that
Speaker 1: a steal has to come up forever very like five
Speaker 1: to ten minutes. Yeah, it's like whack a mole almost exactly,
Speaker 1: and they it's well, it's sad in a way, but
Speaker 1: it's also, uh it's sad for the seal, but it's
Speaker 1: necessary and it's pretty sharp too, but it's it's an
Speaker 1: amazing waiting game that requires tons of Like you can
Speaker 1: watch videos on YouTube of a bear, and this is
Speaker 1: like a a thousand pound bear, like very gingerly because
Speaker 1: you know, the seal can see what's going on or
Speaker 1: feel it, and they very quietly walk up to these
Speaker 1: holes and just wait like a cat almost hours, yeah, days,
Speaker 1: just waiting and smelling. They can smell like twenty miles
Speaker 1: so you can bet they can smell down into that hole.
Speaker 1: And then there's one that slow mobie ado of this
Speaker 1: bear like leaping up in the air and the whole
Speaker 1: basically everything but his butt and his hind legs goes
Speaker 1: down into that water grabs that seal with those claws
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's like these curse these breathing holes that
Speaker 1: I need. Uh, I couldn't have had guilt. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the bear eats well, like I said, about a hundred
Speaker 1: pounds and a meal. And it's also horrific because they're
Speaker 1: white and the blood from the seal really stands out
Speaker 1: against Yeah, and on the ice and snow, it's like
Speaker 1: it does. It looks like a horror movie. But bears
Speaker 1: have actually evolved to clean up very like immediately after eating.
Speaker 1: So they'll eating eating, eat like you said, they'll eat
Speaker 1: like a hundred pounds of blubber at a time, and
Speaker 1: when the hunting is good, they'll just eat the seals blubber. Sure, right, um.
Speaker 1: And actually what's interesting is the omega threes in that
Speaker 1: seal blubber actually cut down on the type of cholesterol
Speaker 1: that would allow plaque to build up in their arteries,
Speaker 1: so they can subsist basically on a diet of fat
Speaker 1: seal blubber. You know, it's amazing. Um. And right after
Speaker 1: they finished this meal, they're covered in blood and it's
Speaker 1: really again horrific. They'll take a bath. Depending on the
Speaker 1: time of year, they'll take a bath in the in
Speaker 1: the sea itself, or they'll take a snow bath, and
Speaker 1: then they'll take a little nap well, because they need that,
Speaker 1: like you said, they need that furtive remain translucent and
Speaker 1: clean in order to stay warm and dry. So uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they clean up to keep themselves warm, not just because
Speaker 1: they look like something out of a West Craven movie, right,
Speaker 1: but also because they have to remain camouflaged too. Yeah, exactly. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: before we take a break, I do want to mention
Speaker 1: the very funny thing if a polar bear does not
Speaker 1: get that seal in the hole, they can throw a
Speaker 1: little hissy fit. Oh yeah, and they've been known to
Speaker 1: like pound the ice and frustration. Uh. And I don't
Speaker 1: think like people are you know, putting or stuff on
Speaker 1: the bear like they literally like when they miss the
Speaker 1: seal start throwing things around and beating on the ice
Speaker 1: because they're angry. Like imagine waiting at an air hole
Speaker 1: for two days the seal finally comes up and you miss. H. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can. I don't think it's anthropomorphizing either. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Um. All right, let's take a break and
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about their dwindling ice and
Speaker 1: numbers after this. Sorry JH, all right, we're back. One
Speaker 1: thing we did not mention that I think it's obvious,
Speaker 1: but we might as well say it is. The polar
Speaker 1: bear is nothing hunts the polar bear. Right there, the king,
Speaker 1: Daddy's and Mama's of their land. The apex predator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty good place to be. Um. The
Speaker 1: bad place to be if you're a polar bear is
Speaker 1: where you live and hunt, because, like we said, it's
Speaker 1: it's shrinking, and um, it creates a lot of problems.
Speaker 1: You mentioned a little bit about the ecosystem. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll go in there and they'll eat birds and eggs
Speaker 1: and things like that when they have to caribou maybe
Speaker 1: on the shore. Yeah, but they're they're not supposed to
Speaker 1: be eating that stuff. Uh. And they're not supposed to
Speaker 1: be encountering humans as often as they are either, which
Speaker 1: is a problem in some parts of the world. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Well there's actually um a town in Manitoba called Churchill
Speaker 1: that's developed a like basically it's made itself a tourist
Speaker 1: destination for polar bear tourism. Um. But it's like one
Speaker 1: of the few places in the world that's like an
Speaker 1: established settlement where Westerners can come and um view them. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: But even in Churchill, they they occasionally have to like
Speaker 1: shoot the polar bears if they just won't leave. And
Speaker 1: apparently a little p s a here. If you ever
Speaker 1: encounter a polar bear, do not lay down and play dead.
Speaker 1: That's not what you want to do. Yeah, is it
Speaker 1: like regular bears? You try to make yourself look big,
Speaker 1: look big, make a lot of noise, chase them off. Um.
Speaker 1: Apparently they'll break out. There's another town um in uh
Speaker 1: I think Norway. Uh. That what they'll like, rev their snowmobiles.
Speaker 1: They'll get the town helicopter out and try to scare
Speaker 1: them off like that. Yeah, that's the one small bard
Speaker 1: which has people and three thousand polar bears. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they've probably gotten pretty used to fending for themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have. Um for the most part, the bears will
Speaker 1: leave because from everything I saw, the polar bear in
Speaker 1: particular isn't interested in in encountering humans. It's not their thing. No,
Speaker 1: it's like almost any wildlife, they're forced into that situation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you look at bear attacks though, um, like a
Speaker 1: grizzly bear will attack you while you're just sleeping quietly
Speaker 1: in a sleeping bag near anywhere near and it comes
Speaker 1: into your camp. It'll mall you your dad the polar bear.
Speaker 1: List of polar bear attacks do not include stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's it's a polar bear that you've startled or you're
Speaker 1: very hungry or it's very hungry and you have been
Speaker 1: have meat in your pockets. Yeah that was Yeah in Churchill, Manitoba.
Speaker 1: There um their stats they have had two people killed
Speaker 1: in three hundred years by polar bears. Yeah, it's that's
Speaker 1: pretty good track record for one of two towns where
Speaker 1: not bad. One of them was because these kids, uh
Speaker 1: saw a bear and started throwing rocks at it. Not
Speaker 1: a good idea. So the bear was like, all right,
Speaker 1: jerk's here I come. Uh. And then the second one,
Speaker 1: a dude had meat in his pockets, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was eating at a diner. He wanted to go box,
Speaker 1: just put that meat loaf in your pocket. And he's like,
Speaker 1: I guess I will this one time and the one time.
Speaker 1: But actually, if you do look at the polar bear
Speaker 1: stats right for attacks fatal attacks by polar bears in
Speaker 1: the United States and Canada, And remember sixty of all
Speaker 1: polar bears uh live in Canada, so this is a
Speaker 1: substantial amount of the polar bears. Um. There there have
Speaker 1: been eight fatal attacks in the United States and Canada
Speaker 1: by polar bears since nineteen Four of those took place
Speaker 1: in zoos where humans climbed into the enclosure with the
Speaker 1: polar bear. So this one lady that wanted to swim
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah, they was jumped in and got bitten
Speaker 1: on like the arm and back and was like screaming
Speaker 1: and they fixed her out. Oh she survived. She survived.
Speaker 1: A bad idea. Um, apparently that's the thing. There's a
Speaker 1: dude in Toledo before I was born who was down
Speaker 1: in the polar bear enclosure at the Toledo Zoo and
Speaker 1: they think he was probably on drugs. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: he was like, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go hang out with that polar bear. Yeah, but think
Speaker 1: of it. Eight people died in the US and Canada
Speaker 1: since nineteen seventy two, half of them at the zoo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: only four in the wild. Yeah, so that's the real
Speaker 1: stat It does say a lot, it does. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know we said make yourself look big. If you
Speaker 1: don't know what that means, that means. The big trick
Speaker 1: is to, uh, you probably got on a winter coat
Speaker 1: if you're living in one of these places. So just
Speaker 1: grab the bottom of your winter coat and pull it
Speaker 1: up over your head with your arms and basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just appear like large, and that's one of the
Speaker 1: big survival tips for any bear. Really just makes you
Speaker 1: look bigger and scarier, because bears are you know, actually,
Speaker 1: polar bears are pretty smart supposedly, Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I was about to say they were dumb, but they
Speaker 1: they're one of the smarter mammals. I mean, how so
Speaker 1: where where did you see? That? Was just on a
Speaker 1: polar bear site. You know, they were just literally ticking
Speaker 1: off all the like cognitive abilities. But I think there's
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be much smarter than like your average
Speaker 1: brown bear. Yeah, Yogi Bear, Yeah he's pretty smart. You
Speaker 1: can talk where's the tie? I think he's driven a
Speaker 1: car before you can get inside a picnic basket. I
Speaker 1: love that. When I was a kid, did you watch that?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Yogi Bear? I liked Yogi Bear from like
Speaker 1: the original series all the way through the weird stuff
Speaker 1: in like the seventies. I don't remember the weird stuff
Speaker 1: like um, the laugh Olympics. Oh yeah, yeah, sure, all
Speaker 1: that spin offs and whatnot. Yeah, so Chuck. We've talked
Speaker 1: about it indirectly a couple of times, but the polar
Speaker 1: bears habitat is shrinking. Tremendously right. The ice is literally melting,
Speaker 1: and like I was saying in that one Canadian geographic article,
Speaker 1: they were saying, the bears, the bears in the south
Speaker 1: are really having trouble, and there are far more human
Speaker 1: bear encounters than they normally are. Because if a bear
Speaker 1: makes his way to shore and um, summer strikes and
Speaker 1: the ice recedes, they're stuck. He's stuck. They have to
Speaker 1: wait around until winter comes again or late fall and
Speaker 1: the ice starts to come back towards shore so they
Speaker 1: can swim toward it or swim right exactly. Um. So
Speaker 1: that's that's creating a problem, especially for the ones that
Speaker 1: are in the southern range. But the ones that are
Speaker 1: in the northern range are enjoying like easier hunting than
Speaker 1: ever because the ice is thinning out for them, so
Speaker 1: they the seals can get through it more easily. So
Speaker 1: there's more seals, so there's more hunting up north. The
Speaker 1: thing is that's not necessarily sustainable, Like they may be
Speaker 1: enjoying like a heyday right now, but eventually that ice
Speaker 1: will melt too, and well they'll be gonners because a
Speaker 1: bear can overheat from from running right. So as the
Speaker 1: temperatures increase, the bear is actual physical health is in danger.
Speaker 1: Let alone there you know, habitat shrinking. Um. So they're
Speaker 1: not entirely certain what to do. I looked up hunting
Speaker 1: polar bears, and I think the only the Inuit people
Speaker 1: are allowed to well, you can get there are certain
Speaker 1: places in Canada where he can get an exemption, but
Speaker 1: it's apparently very rare and controlled and very expensive. Well
Speaker 1: and expensive and and supposedly they say, is is well
Speaker 1: within the um the bounds of not harming the overall
Speaker 1: population number. Well again, I'm sorry to keep going back
Speaker 1: to this. Well, but that Canadian geographic article, um, I
Speaker 1: should probably say the name. I think it's called The
Speaker 1: Truth about Polar Bears. Yeah, totally worth reading, but um
Speaker 1: it talks a lot about managed hunting programs being a
Speaker 1: good thing or bad. They were saying it's as long
Speaker 1: as it's done right, basically everybody involved. I think they
Speaker 1: even cited the World Wilde I fund as saying like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should probably like manage these populations through hunting with
Speaker 1: with very strict quotas. But yeah, the Inuits traditionally, or
Speaker 1: the Inuit and I think the Cree are two groups
Speaker 1: that have like virtually unrestricted honting like native rights, but
Speaker 1: they're they're apparently trusted to, you know, stay within these
Speaker 1: these limits. Yeah, and the people that can pay to
Speaker 1: do it, I think have to be taken in by
Speaker 1: Inuit guides. And they actually the Innuit families who keeps
Speaker 1: the the bear meat? Right after the rich American? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that too, kills the bear, which is that's great?
Speaker 1: Who cares about the meat? I just want to kill
Speaker 1: the bear. Yeah, I just want the head on my wall.
Speaker 1: I founded Jimmy John's. Isn't that the guy? Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: a big game hunter. Who else was? Who's the other guy?
Speaker 1: The dentist? It killed Leo the lion. I wonder whatever
Speaker 1: happened to him. I bet his dentist practice suffered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be my guess. Oh, it definitely did. But I
Speaker 1: wonder if it rebounded since since the initial since the
Speaker 1: Internet got bored and moved on to something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably so. I mean, I'm not into any hunting for myself, um,
Speaker 1: but I've certainly hate big game hunting for anyone. You know,
Speaker 1: I would like to put a call out like, um,
Speaker 1: any time I've I've had discussions about hunting or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I've said, I don't, I don't see the point
Speaker 1: in our modern world of hunting. UM. It's always been
Speaker 1: countered with, well, you know, hunting is a lot more
Speaker 1: humane than the factory sure farming that you're you're eating
Speaker 1: the meat from. Um. And I've never that's always struck
Speaker 1: me as a straw straw argument, draw me an argument.
Speaker 1: But I've never been able to exactly identify why. Or
Speaker 1: maybe it's not. And that's why I've never been able
Speaker 1: to idea to five why. But it's it's always confounded me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I know that people talk about
Speaker 1: the populations and controlled hunting and all that being good
Speaker 1: for the population, which I'm sure that's very valid. I'm
Speaker 1: just talking about me personally. Like when push came to shove,
Speaker 1: I like hanging out in the the woods, I like camping.
Speaker 1: I like shooting guns every now and then it targets. Sure,
Speaker 1: shoot up some tin cans. It's fun. But when push
Speaker 1: came to shove, I can never like pull the trigger
Speaker 1: and kill an animal. I shot a squirrel when I
Speaker 1: was a kid and it was just like the worst
Speaker 1: day of my life. I think I've told that story
Speaker 1: was awful. I've got one or two of those under
Speaker 1: my belt. Yeah, and you either get into it or
Speaker 1: you don't, I guess. And all of my friends hunted
Speaker 1: growing up, you know, in Georgia at my church, like
Speaker 1: every single one of them. But my dad didn't hunt,
Speaker 1: So I didn't hunt. Yeah, he didn't take a stand.
Speaker 1: He was just he was into camping and hiking and
Speaker 1: not shooting animals, leaving nothing but footprints, nothing but photographs.
Speaker 1: Let's not take only pictures and polar bear heads, leave
Speaker 1: only footprints, leave only blood in the snow, and leave
Speaker 1: the polar bear meat behind for the Inuit. So Newt, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? No, let's finish up with Newt.
Speaker 1: Everyone remembers Newt cutest polar bear ever. Uh in Germany
Speaker 1: and new to die very sadly had a seizure and
Speaker 1: fell into a pool. And they think that he probably
Speaker 1: drowned once he fell in, right, I think he had meningitis. Well, no,
Speaker 1: they finally found out what it is. They couldn't find
Speaker 1: any kind of pathogen, and so this doctor Harold Pruss
Speaker 1: for the German Center of Neurodegenerative Disease, got together with
Speaker 1: um Professor Alex Greenwood at the Leibnitz Institute for Zoo
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Research, and they said that he had an
Speaker 1: autoimmune disease. They found out because nothing made sense about
Speaker 1: the seizure, so they really wanted to investigate, not only
Speaker 1: for Newt's sake, but to you know, see if they
Speaker 1: could help other animals. And uh, it turns out that
Speaker 1: Newt is the very first animal domesticated while ever diagnosed
Speaker 1: with an anti n M d A receptor encephalitis. Oh
Speaker 1: that's what it was. Encephalitis, not mangitis. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: a non infectious form of it. Encephalitis, which basically is
Speaker 1: when your bodies on immune system attacks your brain. Is
Speaker 1: the very first animal ever recorded to have this. So well,
Speaker 1: poor Newda. But a big breakthrough to learn this that
Speaker 1: it can happen, because now they can you know, study it,
Speaker 1: and new It was the the reason that they can
Speaker 1: make this progress. So maybe something good can come from that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Very sad though, Sure have a seizure and falling water
Speaker 1: and drown. Yeah, got anything else? Got nothing else? I
Speaker 1: do have one other thing that Inuit. Speaking of the Inuit,
Speaker 1: they have um obviously a number of legends about polar bears.
Speaker 1: One of them is that they're actually uh shape shifters,
Speaker 1: human shape shifters once again their iglues, they shed their
Speaker 1: polar bis skin and turned back into human like that.
Speaker 1: The other is that um when when an Inuit kills
Speaker 1: the polar bear, they will put out like an offering
Speaker 1: of tools, again with the idea that the polar bears
Speaker 1: um have some sort of uh they share an afterlife
Speaker 1: with humans, possibly as humans um, and that they need
Speaker 1: these tools in the afterlife. And the better the spread
Speaker 1: of tools you give the polar bear, the more likely
Speaker 1: this polar bear is to tell other living polar bears, Hey,
Speaker 1: you should let this guy kill you because he's gonna
Speaker 1: hook you up with some amazing tools afterward. So go
Speaker 1: ahead and let him take your life. Very spiritual, it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. They call him Nanook. Yes in a n
Speaker 1: U K Yeah not okay uh. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about nannook uh, you can type the word
Speaker 1: polar bears into the search part how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said Nanook, it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: I don't even call this letter from a young fan. Okay, good,
Speaker 1: we like those right, Yeah, of course, Hey, guys. I'm
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old fan. Actually, my fifteenth birthday is tomorrow,
Speaker 1: which is now in the past, so he's already fifteen.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get it out before then. I've been
Speaker 1: listening since last July, and I've recently been listening to
Speaker 1: the older podcast from the beginning about three years in.
Speaker 1: At this point, I've never written in before because I
Speaker 1: had no real reason to. I have recently started my
Speaker 1: freshman year at a new school, and it's been hard
Speaker 1: for me because I was homeschooled before this and I
Speaker 1: could listen to you guys whenever I wanted to. But
Speaker 1: now I'm at a charter school and I miss having
Speaker 1: you in my ear all the time. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: he sends his name is Elias, and he sends a
Speaker 1: couple of ps s. If Jerry were to speak at
Speaker 1: the normal volume, would your microphones pick her up? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I don't think so, Jerry, would they now? She sees
Speaker 1: are right? Now? These are directional mix Uh. These are
Speaker 1: omnipresental mikes. Well, that means they should pick up Jerry right,
Speaker 1: but they're not that good. Okay, Uh no, Alias. These
Speaker 1: microphones are generally for when we put our mouths right
Speaker 1: upon them, and they're not meant to hear other things
Speaker 1: in the room, right, That's that's what they're made for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because Jerry's she yells at us through most of the show,
Speaker 1: no one ever hears it. There's a lot of like
Speaker 1: shaking and twitching that we do. And then the PPS,
Speaker 1: which is correct. Recently came across how squatters work. You
Speaker 1: gave an example of renters who moved out, but it
Speaker 1: invited a house guess who refused to move out, which
Speaker 1: classified as a squatter. I was wondering if you could
Speaker 1: rent for a month, stop paying, and refuse to move
Speaker 1: out and invoked squatters rights, would that work. I'm not
Speaker 1: planning on trying it, but it invoked my curiosity. ALIAS.
Speaker 1: I don't think that would work because it takes many,
Speaker 1: many years too to finally gain you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you might be able to stay there for a little while,
Speaker 1: but I don't think you would be able to stay
Speaker 1: there for the years it would take to gain I
Speaker 1: guess ownership of the property. Oh is that that's what
Speaker 1: he's asking? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you you'd be able
Speaker 1: to stay there throughout the legal process. But like I
Speaker 1: think it's like thirteen years that you have to stay
Speaker 1: somewhere well before you can. Okay, but it's years, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it takes a long time. Sure, And I would imagine
Speaker 1: at some point a landlord would eventually bring in uh
Speaker 1: Vinny and Vinny and Jimmy Vinne and Toots Vineyan Toots
Speaker 1: to make sure you leave. Yeah, that would be my guest.
Speaker 1: The key here, Elias, is to go find yourself an
Speaker 1: abandoned house that clearly no one wants move in there
Speaker 1: spruced to place up and start paying taxes on it.
Speaker 1: Don't do that, But I'm just saying sure. Advice to
Speaker 1: fifteen year old listeners. Thank you, Alis, Yeah, thanks a
Speaker 1: lot of lies. That was a good one. If you
Speaker 1: have a question, then you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us, you can tweet to us at s y
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