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Rare hunting scene raises questions over polar bear diet
With sea ice melting, the king of the Arctic may be changing its diet.
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This handout photo taken on August 21, 2020 and obtained from Polish biologist Izabela Kulaszewicz of the University of Gdansk on November 26, 2021 shows a female polar bear feeding on the carcass of a reindeer on the Svalbard archipelago, Norway. (AFP/Izabela Kulaszewicz)
A
polar bear chases a reindeer into the water, drags it ashore and devours it, in a striking scene caught on film for the first time.
With sea ice melting, the king of the Arctic may be changing its diet.
The dramatic spectacle played out in Norway's Svalbard archipelago on August 21, 2020 -- in summer, the sea ice retreats and takes with it the seals that make up the polar bear's main source of food.
A research team from a nearby Polish scientific station watched it happen and caught for the first time on camera a polar bear hunting a reindeer.
The video shows a young female chasing a male reindeer into the icy waters, catching and drowning it, then pulling it on shore and making a meal of it.
"The whole situation was so amazing that it was like watching a documentary," said Izabela Kulaszewicz, a biologist at the University of Gdansk.
"You could almost hear the voice of a narrator in the background saying that you absolutely have to watch this event because we will most likely never see anything like it again," she told AFP.
