Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Chuck Bryant scratching out a significant
Speaker 1: amount of this article. Like literally as we started recording.
Speaker 1: That's important stuff. There's like numbers and dates and weights,
Speaker 1: anders and that that's that's important stuff you to scratched out.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's all covered in the body of
Speaker 1: the text of the article, though, well, I mean that's
Speaker 1: one way to do an intro. Is anybody in journalism
Speaker 1: can tell you you can write the article and then
Speaker 1: go back and summarize that it's an intro. I've never
Speaker 1: been partial of that. The intro to me is just
Speaker 1: like this stream of consciousness. It tells you where the
Speaker 1: rest of the article is going to go because you
Speaker 1: don't know, man, because it's all jazz baby. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Polar bears polar bears another polar bear club. Although they
Speaker 1: may have clubs, they're one of the least studied mammal
Speaker 1: populations on the planet. Because it's cold, no one wants
Speaker 1: to go hang out and watch them, yeah, pretty much,
Speaker 1: and because it's also extremely dangerous to to study polar
Speaker 1: bears up close and personal. Yeah, they look cuddly, um,
Speaker 1: but they will, especially New they will. Yeah remember New. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a little bit about New. Very sad. But
Speaker 1: you're gonna say they look cute and cuddly, but don't
Speaker 1: leave us hanging. Well, you go up to hug one
Speaker 1: like you want to, and you get your face eating.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you're lucky, that's all that happens. You know.
Speaker 1: I saw pictures of a guy who um survived a
Speaker 1: polar bear attack. Oh my goodness. Yeah, he was messed up,
Speaker 1: like I guess. It was still attach, but three orders
Speaker 1: of his scalp was now flipped back able like there's
Speaker 1: a whole clear through his achilles tendon and his ankle
Speaker 1: so like as a chillers tendon was intact, and then
Speaker 1: the front at the top of his the front of
Speaker 1: his ankle was intact, but in between the two was gone.
Speaker 1: That could have been a claw, poke or a fang. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could have been like flicking it with its thumb
Speaker 1: and middle finger. Very strong. It's one of nature's cruelest
Speaker 1: things to make an animal so huggable, so deadly. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you hug up polar bears
Speaker 1: bad news. It's like one of those black widows that
Speaker 1: marry and kill. Right, Well, that's just my interpretation of
Speaker 1: polar bears. And you mean the ursus maritimus. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: maritimes is uh, it's a legitimate thing to call it
Speaker 1: because technically a polar bear is a sea animal, a
Speaker 1: sea mammal, because they spend most of their time actually
Speaker 1: on the sea, that's right, and in the sea sometimes,
Speaker 1: as we'll find out. Um, well, I guess we're knee
Speaker 1: deep in this thing. Huh yeah, because you skip the intro.
Speaker 1: Uh So the polar bear what they think? Um? And
Speaker 1: I enjoy our animal casts a lot. And there's some
Speaker 1: of my favorite ones. I just wanted to say that
Speaker 1: although the polar bear doesn't despite its hug ability, doesn't
Speaker 1: compete with the jellyfish or the octopus. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: up there. Sure it is because you can hug at jellyfish,
Speaker 1: you know, I than an octopus. That's a great hug. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eight times as good, I guess four times is good. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: so the polar bear two times is good? Polar bear
Speaker 1: has four? No, I'm as a human hug uh So
Speaker 1: Jerry even like that one. Um, So the polar bear evolved,
Speaker 1: as best as we know, a couple of hundred thousand
Speaker 1: years ago from the brown bear. Actually, I saw the
Speaker 1: scientific consensus between five million and six hundred thousand years
Speaker 1: really because I saw the two all over the place.
Speaker 1: Did you really Yeah, but it might be one of
Speaker 1: those you know how the internet is, like I think
Speaker 1: Science Magazine used the term scientific consensus. Oh wow, so
Speaker 1: I was like, there down the gauntlet. Uh, well let's
Speaker 1: just say let's go with a scientific consensus, um, and
Speaker 1: not our own article on our own website. But they
Speaker 1: did evolve from the brown bear, uh, they think, and um,
Speaker 1: one of the ways that they backed this up is
Speaker 1: by saying, polar bear can go have sex with a
Speaker 1: brown bear and they can make a baby bear, and
Speaker 1: that bear can actually have babies, which means everything jibs.
Speaker 1: Do you remember? I think it was our evolution in
Speaker 1: Isolation episode that was a good one where we talked
Speaker 1: about speciation events and we talked about this how the
Speaker 1: how the brown bear just kept ranging further and further north,
Speaker 1: and as as they're kind of habitat changed, they actually
Speaker 1: evolved too into a different species. The polar bear yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that now, but I remember a species or
Speaker 1: a speciation event taking place when the two groups could
Speaker 1: no longer reproduce. That was my memory of it, But
Speaker 1: I guess not because I went back in double check.
Speaker 1: Memberies 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 they are definitely two different species of humans, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were. Well, you know, occasionally people get together and
Speaker 1: have a few drinks and science is created, you know. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh so there are way more um brown bears, everyone knows.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna talk a lot about this. That the
Speaker 1: polar bear. I'm not sure the official designation. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's officially listed. Well, it depends on where you are, yeah,
Speaker 1: as the official listings is threatened or you know, the like,
Speaker 1: it depends on the country it's in. Yeah, but they are,
Speaker 1: they're not doing great. There's only about twenty five polar
Speaker 1: bears and uh their habitat is shrinking, literally physically shrinking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the big problem is that the the melting of
Speaker 1: Arctic sea ice, as we'll see as the Arctic sea
Speaker 1: ice is where they live. They live on ice floating
Speaker 1: out in the Arctic ocean, um, and they don't like
Speaker 1: to be on land. When they are on land, it's
Speaker 1: a problem for them. So the decrease in Arctic sea
Speaker 1: ice that's going on because the climate change um is
Speaker 1: affecting them tremendously and affecting the rest of the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: But yeah, definitely because um say, like if they get
Speaker 1: stranded on land, they start hunting on like for land mammals,
Speaker 1: which affects the ecosystem, and that now their competition that's
Speaker 1: not normally there for for prey exactly. You know, there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of ripple effects that are coming out of it.
Speaker 1: But one thing I did see is that the the
Speaker 1: polar bears that are really really far north are actually
Speaker 1: benefiting from the melting um ice because it's easier for
Speaker 1: them to hunt now, oh, because there is just less
Speaker 1: area to cover. Um it's the ice is thinner. Oh,
Speaker 1: so they can hunt more easily on 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. Santa lives at the north North
Speaker 1: Pole with the polar bears. That's right. We've all seen
Speaker 1: the Coca Cola commercials. Yeah, but that has penguins in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the penguins and polar bears would never meet. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: Is that maybe at a zoo? Yeah, that is true.
Speaker 1: They had polar bears at the San Diego Zoo. There's
Speaker 1: a polar bear in China in a mall in China
Speaker 1: that has a zoo, and it is one of the
Speaker 1: saddest things I've ever heard of. I signed a petition
Speaker 1: last night to free it. His name is Pizza and
Speaker 1: it is It's the pizza the polar bear. It's the
Speaker 1: it's the saddest. I think it's build as the saddest
Speaker 1: polar bear on the planet. Man, it's so sad. Look
Speaker 1: into it. Chuck outside. Yeah, I guarantee you will. And
Speaker 1: you know what, I bet we could get a lot
Speaker 1: of people to sign that petition. We'll see if it matters.
Speaker 1: The petitions matter. Do they make a difference. Ah. I
Speaker 1: think if they're accompanied with the right like press, like
Speaker 1: media pressure, right or like a mafia thug right to
Speaker 1: deliver the papers. I got a petition for you. I
Speaker 1: highly recommend you read it. Uh. So, polar bears do
Speaker 1: live only in the northern Hemisphere. Those twenty five thousand
Speaker 1: are in nineteen distinct populations, uh, 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 if you asked him that,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be able to tell you. Russia is another
Speaker 1: big one. Norway. Ye, 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 it would take so long for these just they're
Speaker 1: really different from brown bears. Like brown bears are basically herbivores,
Speaker 1: polar bears are carnivores. They eat seal blubber like brown
Speaker 1: bears eat berries in the occasional human on accident, maybe,
Speaker 1: but polar bears are like, give me some steals, I
Speaker 1: want them. I bet they would eat some berries if
Speaker 1: someone offered them up for dessert maybe, but there are
Speaker 1: no berries, you know. But it would take a lot
Speaker 1: because they get kind of big, and they need a
Speaker 1: lot of fat to ward off the cold. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they have a lot of it. They have two
Speaker 1: layers of fur and then blubber, full blubber layer that's
Speaker 1: about four and a half inches thick of just blubbery. 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 feet 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 Steain bears ben Stein. Adult females
Speaker 1: six to eight feet and the males weigh up to
Speaker 1: thirteen 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 claws 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 for a bear. Oh, I thought
Speaker 1: it was very short. What do you think it's a
Speaker 1: good bear span for your lifespan, like forty or fifty years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I want to see for a bear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we all do. Let's be honest. Twenty years. It's
Speaker 1: just like live fast, die young type age, you know.
Speaker 1: So their paws, which we mentioned the claws, they have
Speaker 1: these big, beautiful, fat, round paws that act like snowshoes,
Speaker 1: and they walk and they spread out when they walk
Speaker 1: on the on the ice and sort of distribute their
Speaker 1: weight and in fact when they're on thin ice, they
Speaker 1: even spread their arms out wider. It's very cute. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they have these little uh papilla on their bottom
Speaker 1: paws is old nubs because ice is slippery, and they
Speaker 1: the 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 or some mary time is. So let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about some of its, like actual habits and the
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Speaker 1: you mentioned their fur, right, so you know their furs translucent.
Speaker 1: That's right, they're not. It's not about that. Another episode
Speaker 1: at some point, probably the Evolving Isolation one or maybe
Speaker 1: Translucent or by or the butterflies wings one. What is
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it's called iridescent iridescent. That was
Speaker 1: a really interesting episode two. Um, but yeah, they're there there.
Speaker 1: Um fur is Actually it's translucent because it's hollow, and
Speaker 1: it's hollow because it traps air and then their body
Speaker 1: heat can warm the air. It's kind of like, um,
Speaker 1: have you ever camped when it was cold and all
Speaker 1: you need is one of those little thin blow up
Speaker 1: mats because your body, heat warms the air underneath it.
Speaker 1: It's a brand name, but right, okay, so it's the
Speaker 1: 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: coartzid or something like that. So they're not actually white
Speaker 1: coated in white fur. It's all an illusion. So if
Speaker 1: you saw a polar bear in New York City, it
Speaker 1: would be the color of street garbage, right, like a commute.
Speaker 1: It's not true street garbage color color is that well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's rays mustard. It's like a pizza box.
Speaker 1: And they'll be some recycling and then just some just
Speaker 1: New York apartment to trit us. It's like the colors
Speaker 1: of the rainbow. Alright. So the fur is um not
Speaker 1: all over their body. The parts of their body that
Speaker 1: don't have this thick insulation and this blubber, the tail
Speaker 1: and the muzzle and the ears are adapted to be
Speaker 1: small 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: as 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: a fifty fahrenhent negative fifty that's the like, that's the
Speaker 1: temperature they're they're comfortable in um. And they actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: they experienced no change in body temperature a temperature of
Speaker 1: negative thirty four degrees Fahrheit, 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 thirty KOs a day for days and days
Speaker 1: in a row. And uh, they've 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: thousand twelve article and they mentioned a recent study, so
Speaker 1: probably two thousand, two thousand and eleven maybe twelve study
Speaker 1: found polar bears swimming as a result of climate change
Speaker 1: um up to six eighty seven pometers. That's four miles.
Speaker 1: That's to get from ice to ice. Man, that's sad.
Speaker 1: Four d twenty six miles. These things are just swimming, Like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't think they're supposed to swim that far. No,
Speaker 1: definitely not, you know, no, but they can. They'll do it.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. And they're doing that to eat that sweet
Speaker 1: sweet seal blubber. Yeah. And plus, I mean the sea
Speaker 1: ice is their habitat. This is where they live, it's
Speaker 1: where they sleep, it's and it's where they hunt most
Speaker 1: most importantly. Yeah. So, um, they don't Another big difference
Speaker 1: with the brown bears. They don't hibernate like uh, the
Speaker 1: your average bear. Uh you like that. Uh, females sort
Speaker 1: of semi hibernate when they're kind of pre and post pregnancy,
Speaker 1: but it's not true hibernation. And like the biological sense,
Speaker 1: you want to talk about mating, Oh sure, specifically polar
Speaker 1: bear mating. Oh yeah, so again they are a fairly
Speaker 1: not closely studied um mammal population, right, so scientists actually
Speaker 1: aren't entirely sure. How females signal to males that they're
Speaker 1: um ready to reproduce, and the reason why is um,
Speaker 1: the females don't appear to actually go into any kind
Speaker 1: of heat. They have something called induced ovulation, right, which
Speaker 1: is once they're mating, they start to ovulate. It. Actually
Speaker 1: the intercourse is what causes the ovulation, right, and not
Speaker 1: always sometimes it takes several times. You gotta be good,
Speaker 1: you gotta know what you're doing right. Um. And once
Speaker 1: the once they actually do um. But I guess sure
Speaker 1: once the once the egg is fertilized, the the embryo
Speaker 1: doesn't 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 usual,
Speaker 1: thank cute. You know all you've seen polar bear cubs, right,
Speaker 1: it's pretty adorable. Twins. They're born blind without teeth. They
Speaker 1: probably make cute little noises. They're not insulated, so they
Speaker 1: need mom. Like, if polar bear mom dies right away,
Speaker 1: polar bear cubs will not survive. Oh yeah, there's they're toasts,
Speaker 1: zero chance. Yeah, like you said, they're born blind and
Speaker 1: without teeth. They've really thin for no insulation. They weigh
Speaker 1: about a pound in her foot long, which is really
Speaker 1: tiny for a bear that's gonna grow into pounds. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that mom makes it den when she's um
Speaker 1: carrying her her embryos and starts to fatten up. She
Speaker 1: goes and makes a little winter den, sometimes the snow den, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, you should see that movie snowdon It's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the documentary of the movie. Well both yeah, yeah, okay, Um,
Speaker 1: and so she'll make a little snow cave, snow den,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, um, or use an actual cave.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, she's usually just digging out
Speaker 1: a little space for herself. And then um, she'll give
Speaker 1: birth and then nurse the cubs for at least their
Speaker 1: first twenty months. Yeah, they have to hang out with
Speaker 1: mama for a while and drink that milk. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think maybe, um, a couple of years, maybe up to
Speaker 1: four years. They spend with mom, like learning to hunt
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. Um, but yes, she
Speaker 1: doesn't leave the snow den for like the first um,
Speaker 1: several months. Yeah, dad splits after a week. He's like,
Speaker 1: my work here is done. I might even go get
Speaker 1: someone else pregnant. They're not um and agamus. The women,
Speaker 1: the women, the females, um their lady lady bears. They
Speaker 1: they made successfully usually between the age of six and
Speaker 1: eight years old. And they only for mammal don't reproduce
Speaker 1: a lot, which is one of the reasons there's only
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand of them. They only have about five
Speaker 1: litters over their lifespan, whereas some mammals you know, I
Speaker 1: mean they just have litter upon litter every year of multiple,
Speaker 1: multiple little cubs. Yeah, which is another reason why you know,
Speaker 1: a loss of the to the polar bear population is
Speaker 1: it's a big deal. They don't replace. Their replacement rate
Speaker 1: is kind of low, that's right. Uh. And there could
Speaker 1: be you know, a battle over mating with a female
Speaker 1: because um, it's you know, it's sparks out there. It's
Speaker 1: not the most happening scene for picking up not a
Speaker 1: firm bar, it's not a firm bar uh. So if
Speaker 1: that happens, they will fight, they won't kill each other. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of Yeah. Of course, the
Speaker 1: human to me is like, they know that they're dwindling,
Speaker 1: so they won't kill each other. Of course it's not
Speaker 1: true at all. That's funny because the human to me
Speaker 1: was like they they're like, it's really tough out here,
Speaker 1: so we all got to stick together. Yeah, you'd like
Speaker 1: to think that. Um, but what they do is they
Speaker 1: will they will lower their head but pin their ears
Speaker 1: back and roar. It's kind of a lot of posturing. Um,
Speaker 1: but there could be like an injury that occurs fighting
Speaker 1: over who to mate with, right, but not to the death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it happens occasionally. There's probably a jerk bear
Speaker 1: every 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. It's very sweet.
Speaker 1: So the little bears have been brought up by their mom.
Speaker 1: The twins Chuck and Buck, they are they have been
Speaker 1: brought up by their mom and raised to hunt hunt, hunt,
Speaker 1: and uh, now they know what they're doing. So if
Speaker 1: you could drop in on either one of those guys
Speaker 1: and actually there, I was really surprised to hear this.
Speaker 1: The males will like hang out with one another. They're
Speaker 1: not necessarily territorial. Yeah, they'll even share a meal occasionally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have enough. Again, that's because they're like, it's tough
Speaker 1: out here, man, Come on, They're like, brother, can you
Speaker 1: spare a dime. I've had my hundred pounds of blubber today,
Speaker 1: which is literally how much they can eat. So um.
Speaker 1: When they hunt, they prefer ice, like a bit of ice,
Speaker 1: sea ice that they can sit on. And actually what
Speaker 1: they'll do is they look for holes in the ice.
Speaker 1: The main prey of the polar bear is the ringed seal. Yes,
Speaker 1: their favorite. They'll they'll eat other stuff. They'll eat just
Speaker 1: about anything, a whale, carcass, alive, beluga whale that they
Speaker 1: can catch, um, walrus is whatever, but they really go
Speaker 1: nuts for ringed seals. Okay, so um. Ring seals have
Speaker 1: a thing where, whenever it's um, the ice is thin
Speaker 1: enough for them to dig through. And by thin enough,
Speaker 1: we're talking like six feet right. The seal has these
Speaker 1: um basically appendages and it's flippers that are sharp and
Speaker 1: they use it to carve holes through the sea ice.
Speaker 1: And these are the seals breathing holes, and they make
Speaker 1: about ten to fifteen of them every season and then
Speaker 1: they'll keep them like open throughout the season. They maintain them.
Speaker 1: So they're hunting down there, they're eating their own stuff.
Speaker 1: They need to come up for air sometimes, well polar
Speaker 1: bears stake these things out because they know that a
Speaker 1: seal has to come up forever e very like five
Speaker 1: to ten minutes. 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 it's sad for the seal, but it's necessary
Speaker 1: and it's pretty sharp too, but it's it's an amazing
Speaker 1: waiting game that requires tons of Like you can watch
Speaker 1: videos on YouTube of a bear, and this is like
Speaker 1: a a thousand pound bear, like very gingerly because you know,
Speaker 1: the seal can see what's going on or feel it,
Speaker 1: and they very quietly walk up to these holes and
Speaker 1: just wait like a cat almost yeah days, just waiting
Speaker 1: and smelling. They can smell like twenty miles so you
Speaker 1: can bet they can smell down into that hole. And
Speaker 1: then there's one that slow mo video of this bear
Speaker 1: like leaping up in the air and the whole basically
Speaker 1: everything but his butt and his hind legs goes down
Speaker 1: into that water grabs that seal with those claws and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like these curse these breathing holes that I need,
Speaker 1: uh had guilt. Yeah, and the bear eats well, like
Speaker 1: I said, about a hundred pounds in a meal. And
Speaker 1: it's also horrific, yeah, because they're white and the blood
Speaker 1: for the seal really stands out against Yeah, and on
Speaker 1: the ice and snow, it's like it does. It looks
Speaker 1: like a horror movie. But bears have actually evolved to
Speaker 1: clean up very like immediately after eating. So they'll eat
Speaker 1: and eat and eat. Like you said, they'll eat like
Speaker 1: a hundred pounds of blubber at a time, and when
Speaker 1: the hunting is good, they'll just eat the seals blubber,
Speaker 1: right um. And actually what's interesting is the omega threes
Speaker 1: in that seal blubber actually cut down on the type
Speaker 1: of cholesterol that would allow plaque to build up in
Speaker 1: their arteries, so they can subsist basically on a diet
Speaker 1: of seal blubber. You know, it's amazing. Um. And right
Speaker 1: after they finished this meal, they're covered in blood and
Speaker 1: it's really again horrific. They'll take a bath. Depending on
Speaker 1: the time of year, they'll take a bath in the
Speaker 1: in the sea itself, or they'll take a snow bath,
Speaker 1: and then they'll take a little nap. Well, because they
Speaker 1: need that, like you said, they need that furtive remain
Speaker 1: translucent and clean in order to stay warm and dry.
Speaker 1: So uh, yeah, they clean up to keep themselves warm,
Speaker 1: not just because they look like something out of a
Speaker 1: West Craven movie, but but also because they have to
Speaker 1: remain camouflaged too. Yeah, exactly. Uh. Well, before we take
Speaker 1: a break, I do want to mention the very funny
Speaker 1: thing if a polar bear does not get that seal
Speaker 1: in the hole, they can throw a little hissy fit
Speaker 1: and they've been known to like pound the ice in frustration.
Speaker 1: Uh And I don't think like people are, you know,
Speaker 1: putting their stuff on the bear like they literally like
Speaker 1: when they miss the seal, start throwing things around and
Speaker 1: beating on the ice because they're angry. Like imagine waiting
Speaker 1: at an air hole two days the seal finally comes
Speaker 1: up and you miss. Yeah, I can. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's anthropomorphizing either. It's pretty funny. All right, let's take
Speaker 1: a break and we'll talk a little bit about their
Speaker 1: dwindling ice and numbers after this. Sorry, all right, we're back.
Speaker 1: One 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, They're 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: We 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, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the they're not supposed to be eating that stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they're not supposed to be encountering humans as often
Speaker 1: as they are either, which is a problem in some
Speaker 1: parts of the world. But yeah, well there's actually, um
Speaker 1: a town in Manitoba called Churchill that's developed a like
Speaker 1: basically it's made itself a tourist destination for polar bear tourism. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's like one of the few places in the
Speaker 1: world that's like an established settlement where Westerners can come
Speaker 1: and um view them. Yeah. Uh. But even in Churchill,
Speaker 1: they they occasionally have to like shoot the polar bears
Speaker 1: if they just won't leave. And apparently a little p
Speaker 1: s a here. If you ever encounter a polar bear,
Speaker 1: do not lay down and play debt. That's not what
Speaker 1: you want to do. Yeah, is it like regular bears?
Speaker 1: You try to make yourself look big, look big, make
Speaker 1: a lot of noise, chase them off. Um. Apparently they'll
Speaker 1: break out. There's another town um in uh I think Norway.
Speaker 1: Uh that what they'll like rev their snowmobiles. They'll get
Speaker 1: the town helicopter out and try to scare them off
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah. That's the one small bard which has
Speaker 1: people and three thousand polar bears. Yeah, so they've probably
Speaker 1: gotten pretty used to fending for themselves they have. Um
Speaker 1: for the most part, the bears will leave because from
Speaker 1: everything I saw, the polar bear in particular isn't interested
Speaker 1: in in encountering humans. It's not their thing. No, it's
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: bear list of polar bear attacks do not include stuff
Speaker 1: like that. It's it's a polar bear that you've startled,
Speaker 1: or you're very hungry, or it's very hungry and up
Speaker 1: and have meat in your pockets. Yeah that was Yeah.
Speaker 1: In Churchill, Manitoba. There um their stats they have had
Speaker 1: two people killed in three hundred years by polar bears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which that's pretty good trek record for one of two
Speaker 1: towns where not bad. One of them was because these kids,
Speaker 1: uh saw a bear and started throwing rocks at it.
Speaker 1: Not 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: the dude had meat in his pockets, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: who was eating in 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 bears
Speaker 1: stats right for attacks fatal attacks by polar bears in
Speaker 1: the United States and Canada. And remember six 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: bipolar bear since nineteen two. Four of those took place
Speaker 1: in zoos where humans climbed into the enclosure with the
Speaker 1: polar bear. I sold this one lady that wanted to
Speaker 1: swim with them. Yeah, they was jumped in and got
Speaker 1: bitten on like the arm and back. It was like
Speaker 1: screaming 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 found
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. But think of it.
Speaker 1: Eight people died in the U. S and Canada since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, half of them at the zoo, only
Speaker 1: four in the wild. So that's the real stat It
Speaker 1: does say a lot. It does um And you know
Speaker 1: we said make yourself look big. If you don't know
Speaker 1: what that means, that means. The big trick is to, uh,
Speaker 1: you probably got on a winter out if you're living
Speaker 1: in one of these places. So just grab the bottom
Speaker 1: of your winter coat and pull it up over your
Speaker 1: head with your arms and basically, yeah, you just appear
Speaker 1: like large. And that's one of the big survival tips
Speaker 1: for any bear. Really just makes you look bigger and scarier,
Speaker 1: because bears are you know, actually, polar bears are pretty
Speaker 1: smart supposedly, Is that right? Yeah? I was about to
Speaker 1: say they were dumb, but they they're one of the
Speaker 1: smarter mammals. I mean, how so where did you see that?
Speaker 1: I was just on a polar bear site. You know,
Speaker 1: they were just literally ticking off all the like cognitive abilities.
Speaker 1: But I think there's they're supposed to be much smarter
Speaker 1: than like your average brown bear. Yeah, yogi bear, Yeah
Speaker 1: there he's pretty smart. You can talk where's the tie?
Speaker 1: I think he's driven a car before you can get
Speaker 1: inside a picnic basket. I love that. When I was
Speaker 1: a kid, did you watch that? Oh? Yeah, I liked
Speaker 1: Yogi Bear from like the original series all the way
Speaker 1: through the weird stuff in like the seventies. I don't
Speaker 1: remember the weird stuff like, um, the laugh Olympics. Yea,
Speaker 1: all that it's been off and whatnot. Yeah, so Chuck.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it indirectly a couple of times. But
Speaker 1: the Polar bears habitat is shrinking tremendously, right, The ice
Speaker 1: is literally melting, and like I was saying in that
Speaker 1: one Canadian geographic article, they were saying that the bears,
Speaker 1: the bears in the south are really having trouble and
Speaker 1: there are far more human bear encounters than they normally are.
Speaker 1: Because if a bear makes his way to shore and um,
Speaker 1: summer strikes and the ice recedes, they're stuck. He's stuck.
Speaker 1: They have to wait around until winter comes again or
Speaker 1: a late fall and the ice starts to come back
Speaker 1: towards shore so they can swim toward it or swim
Speaker 1: right exactly. Um. So that's that's creating a problem, especially
Speaker 1: for the ones that are in the southern range, but
Speaker 1: the ones that are in the northern range are enjoying
Speaker 1: like easier hunting than ever because the ice is thinning
Speaker 1: out for them, so they the seals can get through
Speaker 1: it more easily, so there's more seals, so there's more
Speaker 1: hunting up north. The thing is that's not necessarily sustainable,
Speaker 1: Like they may be enjoying like a heyday right now,
Speaker 1: but eventually that ice will melt too, and well they'll
Speaker 1: be goners. Interesting because a bear can overheat from from
Speaker 1: running right, so as the temperatures increase, the bears actual
Speaker 1: physical health is in danger. Let alone there you know,
Speaker 1: habitat shrinking um. So they're not entirely certain what to do.
Speaker 1: I looked up hunting polar bears, and I think the
Speaker 1: only the Inuit people are allowed to Well, you can
Speaker 1: get there are certain places in Canada where he can
Speaker 1: get an exemption, but it's apparently very rare and controlled
Speaker 1: and very expensive, well and expensive and and supposedly they
Speaker 1: say is is well within um the bounds of not
Speaker 1: harming the overall population number. Well again, I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: keep going back to this, well, but that Canadian geographic article, um,
Speaker 1: I should probably say the name. I think it's called
Speaker 1: the Truth about Polar Bears 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 Wildlife 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. But they're they're apparently
Speaker 1: trusted to, you know, stay within these these limits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the people that can pay to do it, I
Speaker 1: think have to be taken in by an with guides,
Speaker 1: and they actually the Inuit families who keeps the the
Speaker 1: bear meat? Right after the rich American? Yeah, I saw
Speaker 1: that too, kills the bear, which is that's great? Who
Speaker 1: cares about the meat? I just want to kill the bear? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want the head on my wall. I founded
Speaker 1: Jimmy John's. Isn't that the guy? Yeah, he's a big
Speaker 1: game hunter. Who else was? Who's the other guy? The dentist?
Speaker 1: I killed Leo the lion? Yeah, I wonder whatever happened
Speaker 1: to him I bet his dentist practice suffered. Yeah, that'd
Speaker 1: be my guess. Oh, it definitely did. But I wonder
Speaker 1: if it rebounded since since the initial since the Internet
Speaker 1: got bored and moved on to something else. Yeah, probably so.
Speaker 1: 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: anytime I've I've had discussions about hunting or whatever, and
Speaker 1: I've said, I don't, I don't see the point in
Speaker 1: our modern world of hunting. Um. It's always been countered with, well,
Speaker 1: you know, hunting is a lot more humane than the
Speaker 1: factory sure farming that you're you're eating the meat from. Um.
Speaker 1: And I've never that's always struck me as a straw
Speaker 1: straw argument, draw me an argument, But I've never been
Speaker 1: able to exactly identify why. Or maybe it's not and
Speaker 1: that's why I've never been able to identify why. But
Speaker 1: it's it's always confounded me. Yeah, I don't. I mean
Speaker 1: I know that people talk about the populations and controlled
Speaker 1: hunting and all that being good for the population, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's very valid. I'm just talking about me personally,
Speaker 1: Like when push came to shove, I like hanging out
Speaker 1: in the woods. I like camping. I like shooting guns
Speaker 1: every now and then it targets. Sure, shoot up some
Speaker 1: tin cans. It's fun. But when push came to shove,
Speaker 1: I can never like pull the trigger and kill an animal.
Speaker 1: I shot a squirrel when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: it was just like the worst day of my life.
Speaker 1: I think I've told that story was awful. I've got
Speaker 1: one or two of those under my belt. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you either get into it or you don't, I guess.
Speaker 1: And all of my friends hunted growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: in Georgia at my church, like every single one of them.
Speaker 1: But my dad didn't hunt, So I didn't hunt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't take a stand. He was just he was
Speaker 1: into camping and hiking and not shooting animals. Leaving nothing
Speaker 1: but footprints, taking nothing but photographs. Let's not take only
Speaker 1: pictures and polar bear heads, leave only footprints, leave only
Speaker 1: blood in the snow, and leave the polar bear meat
Speaker 1: behind for the Inuit. So Newt, oh, yeah, you got
Speaker 1: anything else? No, let's finish up with Newt. Everyone remembers
Speaker 1: Newt cutest polar bear ever uh in Germany, and new
Speaker 1: To died very sadly had a seizure and fell into
Speaker 1: a pool. And they think that he probably drowned once
Speaker 1: 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 Ruce
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 newts sake, but to you know, see if they
Speaker 1: could help other animals and the uh. It turns out
Speaker 1: that Newt is the very first animal domesticated wild ever
Speaker 1: diagnosed with an anti n m d A receptor encephalitis.
Speaker 1: Oh that's what it was. In cephalitis mais yeah, which
Speaker 1: is a non infectious form of encephalitis, which basically is
Speaker 1: when your body's own 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
Speaker 1: it and new it was the the reason they can
Speaker 1: make this progress. So maybe something good can come from that.
Speaker 1: Very sad though, sure have a seizure and falling water
Speaker 1: and drown You got anything else? Nothing else? I do
Speaker 1: 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 bear skin and turned back into humans. That The
Speaker 1: other is that UM when when an Inuit kills the
Speaker 1: polar bear, they will put out like an offering of tools,
Speaker 1: again with the idea that the polar bears UM have
Speaker 1: some sort of uh they share an afterlife with humans,
Speaker 1: possibly as humans UM, and that they need these tools
Speaker 1: in the afterlife. And the better the spread of tools
Speaker 1: you give the polar bear, the more likely this polar
Speaker 1: bear is to tell other living polar bears, Hey, you
Speaker 1: should let this guy kill you because he's gonna hook
Speaker 1: you up with some amazing tools afterwards. Nice, 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 Nannook, it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna 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. UH, and it's been
Speaker 1: hard for me because I was homeschooled before this, and
Speaker 1: I could listen to you guys whenever I wanted to.
Speaker 1: But now I'm at a charter school and I miss
Speaker 1: having you in my ear all the time. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then he sends his name is Elias, and he sends
Speaker 1: a couple of ps s. If Jerry were to speak
Speaker 1: at the normal volume, would your microphones pick her up? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I don't think so, Jerry, would they now she speaks?
Speaker 1: Are right? Now? These are directional mis Uh these are
Speaker 1: omnipresidental mikes. Well, that means they should pick up Jerry,
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 media and then the PPS which
Speaker 1: is correct. Recently came across how squatters work. You gave
Speaker 1: me 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 invoke squatters rights, would that work. I'm not
Speaker 1: planning on trying it, but it invoked my curiosity. Alas,
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. Is that that's what he's asking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you you'd be able to stay there throughout the legal process,
Speaker 1: but like I think, it's like thirteen years that you
Speaker 1: have to stay somewhere well before you can. But it's years, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it takes a long time, and I would imagine at
Speaker 1: some point a landlord would eventually bring in Vinny and
Speaker 1: Vinny and Jimmy viny unto it to make sure can
Speaker 1: you leave? Yeah, that would be my guess. The key here, Elias,
Speaker 1: is to go find yourself an abandoned house that clearly
Speaker 1: no one wants move in there, spruced to place up
Speaker 1: and start paying taxes on it. Don't do that, But
Speaker 1: I'm just saying sure. Advice to fifteen year old listeners.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Alis, Yeah, thanks a lot of lies. That
Speaker 1: was a good one. If you have a question, uh,
Speaker 1: then you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook at Facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: and has always joined us at our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com