Hungry polar bears eating each other
We can’t think of anything funny to say about this: polar bears, deprived of their natural food by longer seasons without ice, may be turning to cannibalism. In the journal Polar Biology, American and Canadian scientists reviewed three cases of polar bear cannibalism in early 2004 in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. The kills included a mama bear in her den, a case described in graphic detail by the researchers, insuring that we won’t be able to sleep for a week. Polar bears usually eat ringed seals; they kill each other for population regulation, dominance, and reproductive advantage, but in over two decades of study, scientists had never seen polar bears stalk, kill, and eat each other. “This is not a Coca-Cola commercial,” said Deborah Williams of green group Alaska Conservation Solutions. “This represents the brutal downside of global warming.” You can say that again.
