Newsflash: Polar Bears Not As Threatened As We Thought?

Since global warming was made a thing by Al Gore, the polar bear has been its spokesperson. We were, well, not thrilled to see the polar bear put on the endangered species list, but kind of glad it got there so as to raise awareness of global climate change.

But are they really that threatened?

It sounds like a silly question. After all, the polar bear is an environmentalism mascot, just like pandas, tigers, and whales. They're one of those animals every zoo either has or tries to get because the species is going out of fashion in the natural world.

Then this tidbit came up on NPR. Recently, a writer went to the Arctic to write about polar bears. While there, he found an honest scientist who kindly showed him some polar bear droppings.The droppings revealed that the polar bear, which according to the interwebs has a diet consisting largely of seals, was also fond of goose meat and reindeer- Christmas dinner, if you will. (If we had more citations, we would give them.)

And yet, we cannot find this blurb on the internet. It made it to National Public Radio, but the surprisingly diverse diet of the polar bear has not yet crept onto the interwebs. Consider it crawling around, now. Treat it as a rumor if you like; it will get confirmed/debunked eventually.
The absence of this information on the internet baffles us, even when it shouldn't. Considering how many places say that the polar bear mainly eats seals, surely this would revolutionize something.

There are a few reasons why this hasn't gotten out, assuming its truth to begin with.  Facilities who have polar bears want to make them as big a draw as possible, which means making the bears sound rarer and more fragile than they actually are. Hell, zoos have a special "polar bear diet" that I'm pretty sure does not consist entirely of seal meat (Google it). There's something shady going on.

Don't get us wrong. The polar bear is still under legitimate threat from global warming. It's just not quite as bad as we thought.

Who's That Pokemon - Unova Edition: Cubchoo/Beartic.

Usually, I try to avoid doing the "usual suspects" on this blog. By "usual suspects," I mean animals that every tree-hugging organization and its grandma are pimping. This is limited almost entirely to large, carnivorous mammals (with the occasional giant herbivore), so it's pretty easy to think outside of the box. People already know most of those animals, so, wonderful though they may be, I tend to avoid them.

That said, it's really about time that this blog covered the inspiration for Cubchoo and Beartic: the polar bear.

 

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are giant, white bears that typically feed on seals, whale carcasses, and sometimes human garbage. Despite being born on land, they spend most of their time at sea, swimming and/or waiting for seals to poke their heads above water. They live only in the Arctic Circle, not the Antarctic, so any images you see of penguins and polar bears chillin' in the same place is completely fake. I'm looking at you, Coke.

American culture in particular has this weird dual stance when it comes to bears. On one hand, the bear - any bear - could rip your arm off with its claws, teeth, or both. On the other, awwwww, lookit those cute widdle ears and that fluffy-wuffy fur! And that little bobby tail! Never mind the hundreds of pounds of teeth, claws, and muscle. We find bears unbearably cute. By default, that makes them among the most marketable of the "usual suspects." (Pokemon actually addressed this side of bear-hugging in one anime episode featuring Teddiursa, but it's a minor point.)



Polar bears are the largest land carnivores period. They're twice as large as a Siberian tiger. Males are bigger than females, with the largest specimen weighing 1,002 kg - a little over 2,000 pounds in U.S. measurements. The paws can spread a foot from toe to toe in large adults. Did we mention that this bear has the most thoroughly carnivorous teeth of any bear? Watch this magnificent animal from a distance.

The polar bear is also warmer than your average bear.  Not only does it have a thick layer of fat like many animals that live in cold regions, but the bear has more fur than normal - even on the paws! The skin beneath the bear's translucent fur is actually black. No, I don't know what brave soul decided to shave a polar bear and find out what color the skin was for themselves, but they're probably missing a limb.

The polar bear is now officially on the "vulnerable" list, but may be too little, too late depending upon whom you ask. Oil drilling in Alaska, along with several other harmful environmental practices, is still perfectly legal. As one conservation group put it, "the bear's in the E.R., and they're just leaving it to die." Other people insist that the bear is in no danger at all. The polar bear's case is not something simple like "don't shoot the wolves" or "Chinese medicine kills tigers." There are a number of factors that will likely soon place the polar bear in the same situation as the scimitar-horned oryx: Only alive in captivity with an off-chance of being reintroduced to the wild. In the case of the polar bear, however, there will be no wild left for it to return to. Enjoy real-live Cubchoo like Knut while you can.

Creature Feature: Giant Panda.

For the record, the original Sifl and Olly song involved sock puppets. Pick your poison.

Yes, on the night before Halloween, this blog will cover the horror that is...THE PANDA (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)!


The more I think about it, the more awesome a panda rock band sounds. 

Seriously, though? Pandas are overrated.

 
For starters, the dubious camouflage. I know that most animals see in black and white, but still.

A brief recap for those of you who know absolutely nothing about pandas: The Giant Panda is native to the bamboo forests of China. It eats almost nothing but bamboo and fruit despite being a carnivore. Contrary to older evidence, pandas are indeed bears; they are most closely related to the Spectacled Bear (Tremarctos ornatus) of South America.

To be fair, pandas are somewhat weird in their own right. They have 'thumbs;'  a mutated seismoid bone helps the panda eat bamboo. It also has a tail 4-6 inches (approximately 10-15 centimeters) long, making it the second longest tail of all bear species. Hell, even an herbivorous bear is weird; most bears are omnivores with a slight preference for flesh. They are also rare as all get-out with around 3,000 individuals in the wild, if that.

But really? People only want to save the panda because it looks adorable. It is not commonly used in Chinese medicine or ancient Chinese art. As soon as China learned that the West wanted to capitalize on the giant stuffed toy called the panda bear, they started loaning the bears to zoos. Whenever they appear in captivity, they are a huge attraction; the panda cage at Ueno Zoo had a HUGE crowd around it when I was in Japan.  


Yet, despite mankind's best efforts, the panda is one of those creatures that nature wants to kill off. Pandas are working with a carnivore's teeth and, for the most part, digestive tract. They are lethargic and have a very low metabolic rate thanks to their preferred diet. Pandas generally avoid other pandas and refrain from physical activity as much as possible since they derive so little energy from bamboo. They will eat meat, eggs and fish if offered. Who can blame them?

Pandas are so lazy that they are not even particularly interested in making love. Their mating period is very short, even in the wild, and a number of crazy methods have been used to get them to mate in captivity. These include making them watch panda porn and giving the males Viagra. Yes, really.


When a mommy and daddy panda love each other very, very much...no, really, junior. Being a whore will kill you.

Wow. Pandas sound like worthless man-children that have never gotten laid and do nothing but play video games all day while eating sugary snacks. Yeah, save that species. [/sarcasm] Cracked.com put it best: "The panda is nature's loser."

 Yes, pandas are rare. Yes, they eat bamboo. Yes, deforestation is horrible, but the panda's situation was pretty bleak as it was. The panda is really the sort of creature that would die out eventually regardless of what we did. Is it really worth preserving?

Creature Feature: Pizzlies.

If you thought that breeding two species of big cat yesterday was dangerous, how about trying it with bears? Better yet, in the case of pizzlies, nature has already done it for you; no drugs required for this idea!

A pizzly (which SOUNDS like another word for bear urine, but whatever, scientific naming system) is a hybrid between a male polar bear (Ursus maritimus) and a female grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis). Pizzlies generally act more like polar bears than grizzlies, stamping like polar bears do ice and sleeping like throw rugs. They have at least some coloration from both species; generally speaking, they have light bodies with darker paws. It looks almost like a Siamese (or Himalayan) cat in bear form:


Meow?

Numerous hunters have found strange-looking bears in Alaska and Canada, but the pizzly was the first confirmed wild hybrid. DNA testing proved its mixed parentage in 2006. Had it been a pure grizzly, hunter Jim Martell would have been arrested. (For some reason, he had a license to kill the FAR more endangered polar bear, but that's another issue entirely.)

If only they would have stuck with "prizzly." "Grolar bear" indicates that the specimen had a grizzly father and polar bear mother, but "pizzly" is the real name for polar x grizzly (with the father's name coming first). "Nanulak," a portmanteau of Inuit words for the two bears, is a fine replacement. "Pizzly" deserves to be pissed on; science, HOW did you manage to make a hybrid of two of the most badass bears in the world sound so lame?