Bear Facts 14

 Arctic peoples hunt polar bears with the help of dogs.

These dogs help the hunters locate the polar bears with their sense of smell, since polar bears blend in with the ice. Once they find the polar bear, the hunters then have the dogs distract and confuse the polar bear by barking and running around it. This then gives the hunters the chance to kill the polar bear with arrows or throwing spears.

Arctic peoples have uses for all of a polar bear’s body.

They use its fur to make clothes or shoes. Polar bear meat is edible, though people run the risk of contracting roundworm infection from polar bear meat. Polar bear fat makes for good fuel and is also edible. The carcass’ tendons get used as thread, while its organs are dried and ground up as medicine.

Polar bear teeth have religious or ceremonial uses, while polar bear bones are fashioned into tools among other products.

Polar bear liver is highly poisonous.

Too much of anything is rarely ever good, and the same goes for the Vitamin A in polar bear livers. Because of its rich vitamin A content, ingesting a polar bear liver runs a high risk of vitamin A poisoning.

This results from the polar bear’s fish-heavy diet, giving them plenty of Vitamin A, which is enough to poison the polar bear itself under regular circumstances. However, they avoid this through their ability to store excess Vitamin A in their livers. Thus, Arctic peoples take good care of disposing the liver properly when they prepare polar bear meat.

Polar bear fur isn’t very valuable.

Commercial hunting of polar bears goes as far back as the 14th Century, but it was never really valuable. Even when guns made hunting polar bears much easier, their value stayed low compared to other kinds of fur, even reindeer fur.

Statistics show that most polar bear deaths by human hands are for protective measures. Hunters usually only kill polar bears to keep them away from human homes and livelihoods.

The ban on polar bear hunting began in the 1950s.

The Soviet Union initiated the trend, banning the hunting of polar bears in 1956. Canada followed in 1968, though they merely imposed strict controls on the hunting of polar bears instead of banning it outright. The USA introduced similar regulations in 1971, and eventually, the world adopted global regulation in 1973.

Climate change heavily affects polar bears.

Global warming, in particular, is a major concern, since it causes sea ice to melt. This makes it more difficult for polar bears to hunt prey, and also increases the number of bears drowning. This is because they must now swim longer to find prey and sea ice, risking exhaustion, starvation, and drowning.