Goose eggs can save white bears

Polar bears may not be extinct in the coming years despite the fact that many of these animals die from starvation. According to scientists, some bears have found new food sources - geese and duck eggs.

Eggs may come from geese in the Hudson Bay area, becoming a source of food for polar bears, their habitats in the Arctic are fading.

In recent years, many of the ice blocks used by white bears to hunt seals have melted, forcing a number of bears - especially immature male bears - to move north or onto land. where they are hard to find food. When trapped on land for months, white bears were forced to survive thanks to their own fat reserves.
White bears are listed as endangered animals under the US Animal Dangerous Act Act.

Meanwhile, the white geese are thriving near the cost of the West Hudson Bay, and researchers say the number of animals is in fact too much. Their eggs can be a potential food source, researchers report in the online journal Polar Biology. These ducks nest on the tundra where white bears are residing.

Robert Rockwell, an ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History and a professor of biology at New York University, said: 'For more than 40 years, about 6 adult males are distributed. It is visible in white geese nests, and 4 of them are seen after 2000. I have observed an adult male bear eating sea duck eggs'.

The ice is melting, averaging 0.72 days earlier each year in the area studied. White geese hatch eggs early 0.16 days per year , according to Rockwell and graduate student Linda Gormezano.

Extraordinary White Bear often hunts seals on ice sheets.When forced to live on land, many bears do not get enough food and live on fat reserves.This near-adult male bear was photographed near Churhchill, Manitoba, Canada.For bears living near the nest of Arctic geese, eggs are nutritious meals.(Photo: Patricia Rockwell)

Current trends show that the occurrence of white bears will disturb the incubation cycle for 3.6 years , and egg consumption may be a regular and reliable option, the researchers concluded. .

White bears, the largest predator on land, need to consume 43 nest eggs to replace the energy gained from hunting seals. However, Rockwell and colleagues say that although many white bears will not become extinct in the coming years, many of them will die of starvation.

White bears have survived a warming period of about 125,000 years ago , when the sea level was about 12 to 18 minutes higher (4 to 6 meters). Rockwell said: 'They have survived similar circumstances.'

The ability to change the diet of white bears to eggs recalled the seafaring of Ilkoo Angutikjuak, an Inuit living in Nunavut, a Canadian province, in the February 2008 issue of Natural History magazine.

Angutikjuak said: 'Animals will adapt themselves. I heard many people say that because white bears depend on sea ice, they will become extinct, but I don't believe in this. They are very adaptable. When sea ice changes, white bears may become thinner and some may die, but I don't think they will become extinct. '

The study was funded by the Hudson Bay Project and the American Museum of Natural History.