14 DAY TRIAL // In a report published in the journal Polar Research earlier this month, a team of scientists describe a rather peculiar incident that they chanced to witness back in last year's April while exploring the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.
Not to drag out the suspense, here's what this group of wildlife researchers saw: a fully grown male polar bear devouring the carcass of a white-beaked dolphin.
Interestingly, the scientists say yet another white-beaked dolphin carcass was lying on the ground not far from where the polar bear was enjoying its meal.
Since prior to this bizarre encounter polar bears had never before been seen feasting on dolphins, the researchers made sure to snap a couple of photos of the male as it was busy tearing off chunks of the marine mammal's meat and gulping them down.
As detailed in the journal Polar Research, the white-beaked dolphin that the polar bear was seen eating likely measured 5 to 9 feet (1.5 to 2.7 meters) from head to tail.
As for its weight, the wildlife researchers say it might be that, when still in one piece, the marine mammal tipped the scale at 680 pounds (308 kilograms). Hence, it's no wonder the polar bear looked positively stuffed when the team crossed paths with it.
Polar bears don't usually hunt and kill dolphins
What with climate change and global warming progressing at a rapid pace, the Arctic's ice cover is dwindling. With less sea ice to serve as a hunting ground at their disposal, polar bears are forced to turn to scavenging and hunting whatever animals they come across ever more often.
Specialists suspect the two white-beaked dolphins the male polar bear was seen hastily devouring in April 2014 died after having migrated too far north and gotten trapped in ice, and that the predator did not actively seek them but instead stumbled upon them and took advantage of the opportunity.
“White-beaked dolphins are frequent visitors to Svalbard waters in summer, but have not previously been reported this far north in early spring,” they write in the journal Polar Research.
“We suggest they were trapped in the ice after strong northerly winds the days before, and possibly killed when forced to surface for air at a small opening in the ice,” they add.
During the time that they spent documenting wildlife in the Svalbard archipelago, the scientists counted a total of 7 white-beaked dolphin carcasses lying on the ice in the same region where the male polar bear was photographed consuming one such marine mammal.
The dolphin corpses were all in pretty bad shape and showed signs of having been partly consumed by polar bears, but these other meals were not witnessed by the wildlife researchers first-hand.
