How Polar Bears Work

one way to do an intro. Is anybody in journalism can tell you you can write the article and then go back and summarize that it's an intro. I've never been partial of that. The intro to me is just like this stream of consciousness. It tells you where the rest of the article is going to go because you don't know, man, because it's all jazz baby. Uh yeah. Polar bears polar bears another polar bear club. Although they may have clubs, they're one of the least studied mammal

populations on the planet. Because it's cold, no one wants to go hang out and watch them, yeah, pretty much, and because it's also extremely dangerous to to study polar bears up close and personal. Yeah, they look cuddly, um, but they will, especially New they will. Yeah remember New. Yeah, I got a little bit about New. Very sad. But you're gonna say they look cute and cuddly, but don't leave us hanging. Well, you go up to hug one like you want to, and you get your face eating.

Oh yeah, if you're lucky, that's all that happens. You know. I saw pictures of a guy who um survived a polar bear attack. Oh my goodness. Yeah, he was messed up, like I guess. It was still attach, but three orders of his scalp was now flipped back able like there's a whole clear through his achilles tendon and his ankle so like as a chillers tendon was intact, and then the front at the top of his the front of his ankle was intact, but in between the two was gone.

That could have been a claw, poke or a fang. Yeah, it could have been like flicking it with its thumb and middle finger. Very strong. It's one of nature's cruelest things to make an animal so huggable, so deadly. So yeah, you know, if you're if you hug up polar bears bad news. It's like one of those black widows that marry and kill. Right, Well, that's just my interpretation of

polar bears. And you mean the ursus maritimus. Yeah, and maritimes is uh, it's a legitimate thing to call it because technically a polar bear is a sea animal, a sea mammal, because they spend most of their time actually on the sea, that's right, and in the sea sometimes, as we'll find out. Um, well, I guess we're knee deep in this thing. Huh yeah, because you skip the intro. Uh So the polar bear what they think? Um? And I enjoy our animal casts a lot. And there's some

of my favorite ones. I just wanted to say that although the polar bear doesn't despite its hug ability, doesn't compete with the jellyfish or the octopus. Um, but it's up there. Sure it is because you can hug at jellyfish, you know, I than an octopus. That's a great hug. Yeah, eight times as good, I guess four times is good. Yeah, alright, so the polar bear two times is good? Polar bear has four? No, I'm as a human hug uh So

Jerry even like that one. Um, So the polar bear evolved, as best as we know, a couple of hundred thousand years ago from the brown bear. Actually, I saw the scientific consensus between five million and six hundred thousand years really because I saw the two all over the place. Did you really Yeah, but it might be one of those you know how the internet is, like I think Science Magazine used the term scientific consensus. Oh wow, so

I was like, there down the gauntlet. Uh, well let's just say let's go with a scientific consensus, um, and not our own article on our own website. But they did evolve from the brown bear, uh, they think, and um, one of the ways that they backed this up is by saying, polar bear can go have sex with a brown bear and they can make a baby bear, and that bear can actually have babies, which means everything jibs.

Do you remember? I think it was our evolution in Isolation episode that was a good one where we talked about speciation events and we talked about this how the how the brown bear just kept ranging further and further north, and as as they're kind of habitat changed, they actually evolved too into a different species. The polar bear yeah, I remember that now, but I remember a species or a speciation event taking place when the two groups could

no longer reproduce. That was my memory of it, But I guess not because I went back in double check. Memberies like, polar bears are different species, but it can. It can reproduce with brown bears. And it does make sense because humans and Neanderthals or neanderthals if you're a pet ant um could could reproduce and have fertile offspring, and they are definitely two different species of humans, right, Yeah, they were. Well, you know, occasionally people get together and

have a few drinks and science is created, you know. Yeah. Yeah, uh so there are way more um brown bears, everyone knows. And we're gonna talk a lot about this. That the polar bear. I'm not sure the official designation. I don't think it's officially listed. Well, it depends on where you are, yeah, as the official listings is threatened or you know, the like, it depends on the country it's in. Yeah, but they are, they're not doing great. There's only about twenty five polar

bears and uh their habitat is shrinking, literally physically shrinking. Yeah, that's the big problem is that the the melting of Arctic sea ice, as we'll see as the Arctic sea ice is where they live. They live on ice floating out in the Arctic ocean, um, and they don't like to be on land. When they are on land, it's a problem for them. So the decrease in Arctic sea ice that's going on because the climate change um is affecting them tremendously and affecting the rest of the ecosystem.

But yeah, definitely because um say, like if they get stranded on land, they start hunting on like for land mammals, which affects the ecosystem, and that now their competition that's not normally there for for prey exactly. You know, there's all sorts of ripple effects that are coming out of it.

But one thing I did see is that the the polar bears that are really really far north are actually benefiting from the melting um ice because it's easier for them to hunt now, oh, because there is just less area to cover. Um it's the ice is thinner. Oh, so they can hunt more easily on interesting Yeah, uh, well it's a good thing you said north, because you're not gonna find polar bears, but the South Pole where Santa lives and penguins. Santa lives at the north North

Pole with the polar bears. That's right. We've all seen the Coca Cola commercials. Yeah, but that has penguins in it. Yeah, the penguins and polar bears would never meet. Yeah, that's true. Is that maybe at a zoo? Yeah, that is true. They had polar bears at the San Diego Zoo. There's a polar bear in China in a mall in China that has a zoo, and it is one of the saddest things I've ever heard of. I signed a petition last night to free it. His name is Pizza and

it is It's the pizza the polar bear. It's the it's the saddest. I think it's build as the saddest polar bear on the planet. Man, it's so sad. Look into it. Chuck outside. Yeah, I guarantee you will. And you know what, I bet we could get a lot of people to sign that petition. We'll see if it matters. The petitions matter. Do they make a difference. Ah. I think if they're accompanied with the right like press, like media pressure, right or like a mafia thug right to

deliver the papers. I got a petition for you. I highly recommend you read it. Uh. So, polar bears do live only in the northern Hemisphere. Those twenty five thousand are in nineteen distinct populations, uh, in five just five countries, including the United States. Yeah. It's funny because their habitat is at the top of the world where five countries basically come together. Well, Alaska, yeah, that's the U. S Part.

Canada obviously. I think two thirds of all polar bears actually live in Canada, even though if you asked him that, they wouldn't be able to tell you. Russia is another big one. Norway. Ye, in Greenland, that is correct. Uh. And it is tough living up there for humans, but not for polar bears. They love it. They're well adapted over the years. Just supposedly, if they run for any bit of time, they have to like stop and lay down because they'll overheat and they will exhaust themselves. Yeah.

Identified a lot when I was reading this with polar bear like, I kind of like these guys. They are incredibly well adapted. Um, which is another reason why I think they don't think it's any less than six hundred thousand years that they evolved from brown bears, because it would it would take so long for these just they're really different from brown bears. Like brown bears are basically herbivores,

polar bears are carnivores. They eat seal blubber like brown bears eat berries in the occasional human on accident, maybe, but polar bears are like, give me some steals, I want them. I bet they would eat some berries if someone offered them up for dessert maybe, but there are no berries, you know. But it would take a lot because they get kind of big, and they need a lot of fat to ward off the cold. Well, yeah,

and they have a lot of it. They have two layers of fur and then blubber, full blubber layer that's about four and a half inches thick of just blubbery. Supposedly, like of their weight at any given time or when they're fully um developed or nourished, is a blubber was their own fat. Since you mentioned the weight, we'll go ahead and throw some stats out. Adult males eight or nine feet Yeah, apparently that's the biggest bear. The polar bear is the biggest of the bears from what I understand,

not the Bear and Steain bears ben Stein. Adult females six to eight feet and the males weigh up to thirteen hundred pounds nine pounds. Yeah, that's that's intimidating. It is you've seen lost. I haven't this article mentioned it though, of course, because it was probably written. When these stats are accurate, the females can get up to about seven hundred pounds. Those claws I mentioned about two inches, and um, they live about twenty years. Um. Yeah, I was surprised

by that. That's really short. Twenty years. Sure, I didn't think that was too for a bear. Oh, I thought it was very short. What do you think it's a good bear span for your lifespan, like forty or fifty years. Yeah, that's what I want to see for a bear. Yeah, well we all do. Let's be honest. Twenty years. It's just like live fast, die young type age, you know.

So their paws, which we mentioned the claws, they have these big, beautiful, fat, round paws that act like snowshoes, and they walk and they spread out when they walk on the on the ice and sort of distribute their weight and in fact when they're on thin ice, they even spread their arms out wider. It's very cute. Uh. And they have these little uh papilla on their bottom paws is old nubs because ice is slippery, and they the front paws are actually slightly webbed for swimming. It's amazing. So,

like you said, it's it's a sea bear. It is the Maritimus or some mary time is. So let's let's talk about some of its, like actual habits and the things it does after a break. You want to Yes, hey, my friend, if you want a website these days, there are some frustrating ways to go about it, but one easy way is by using squares space. Yeah, square space doesn't require you to hang out with coders, you know.

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enter our offer code stuff. Squarespace set your website apart. Chuck, you mentioned their fur, right, so you know their furs translucent. That's right, they're not. It's not about that. Another episode at some point, probably the Evolving Isolation one or maybe Translucent or by or the butterflies wings one. What is I can't remember what it's called iridescent iridescent. That was a really interesting episode two. Um, but yeah, they're there there.

Um fur is Actually it's translucent because it's hollow, and it's hollow because it traps air and then their body heat can warm the air. It's kind of like, um, have you ever camped when it was cold and all you need is one of those little thin blow up mats because your body, heat warms the air underneath it. It's a brand name, but right, okay, so it's the

same thing. But this is their fur that's doing that um, And since it's hollow and translucent, it actually scatters all colors of light and creates this white appearance like a coartzid or something like that. So they're not actually white coated in white fur. It's all an illusion. So if you saw a polar bear in New York City, it would be the color of street garbage, right, like a commute. It's not true street garbage color color is that well, you know, it's rays mustard. It's like a pizza box.

And they'll be some recycling and then just some just New York apartment to trit us. It's like the colors of the rainbow. Alright. So the fur is um not all over their body. The parts of their body that don't have this thick insulation and this blubber, the tail and the muzzle and the ears are adapted to be small because it's not as insulated with that blubber. So um, it requires less energy to heat and it has less

surface to to lose heat from. Right, that's right. So yeah, these guys are like incredibly well adapted for their environment, which is really saying something because their environment is about as inhospitable the mammal is. You can imagine, Um, they are routinely comfortable and apparently have no heat loss whatsoever at temperatures of like negative what was it, like like a fifty fahrenhent negative fifty that's the like, that's the

temperature they're they're comfortable in um. And they actually, yeah, they experienced no change in body temperature a temperature of negative thirty four degrees Fahrheit, which is negative thirty seven celsius. Amazing. Yeah, they're just like it's unaffected by it. They're that well suited to the environment. So we mentioned them walking. They can walk a great distances up to thirty I'm sorry, twenty miles thirty KOs a day for days and days in a row. And uh, they've been tracked swimming up

to sixty miles, which is amazing. Okay. One other thing I saw um a Canadian geographic article, which is a thing okay, Uh, and they get this was a two thousand twelve article and they mentioned a recent study, so probably two thousand, two thousand and eleven maybe twelve study found polar bears swimming as a result of climate change um up to six eighty seven pometers. That's four miles. That's to get from ice to ice. Man, that's sad.

Four d twenty six miles. These things are just swimming, Like, well, I don't think they're supposed to swim that far. No, definitely not, you know, no, but they can. They'll do it. That's amazing. And they're doing that to eat that sweet sweet seal blubber. Yeah. And plus, I mean the sea ice is their habitat. This is where they live, it's where they sleep, it's and it's where they hunt most most importantly. Yeah. So, um, they don't Another big difference

with the brown bears. They don't hibernate like uh, the your average bear. Uh you like that. Uh, females sort of semi hibernate when they're kind of pre and post pregnancy, but it's not true hibernation. And like the biological sense, you want to talk about mating, Oh sure, specifically polar bear mating. Oh yeah, so again they are a fairly not closely studied um mammal population, right, so scientists actually

aren't entirely sure. How females signal to males that they're um ready to reproduce, and the reason why is um, the females don't appear to actually go into any kind of heat. They have something called induced ovulation, right, which is once they're mating, they start to ovulate. It. Actually the intercourse is what causes the ovulation, right, and not always sometimes it takes several times. You gotta be good, you gotta know what you're doing right. Um. And once

the once they actually do um. But I guess sure once the once the egg is fertilized, the the embryo doesn't actually start developing right away either. Yeah, that's super interesting. It's an eight month gestation. But the first four months it's just sitting there. Yeah. Just the fetus is just like waiting while the mom eats and eats and eats and prepares for that long uh, that long period as we'll see where where you know, she has a little cub and uh yeah, a couple of couple of times usual,

thank cute. You know all you've seen polar bear cubs, right, it's pretty adorable. Twins. They're born blind without teeth. They probably make cute little noises. They're not insulated, so they need mom. Like, if polar bear mom dies right away, polar bear cubs will not survive. Oh yeah, there's they're toasts, zero chance. Yeah, like you said, they're born blind and without teeth. They've really thin for no insulation. They weigh about a pound in her foot long, which is really

tiny for a bear that's gonna grow into pounds. Um. And yeah, that mom makes it den when she's um carrying her her embryos and starts to fatten up. She goes and makes a little winter den, sometimes the snow den, which, by the way, you should see that movie snowdon It's good. Yeah, the documentary of the movie. Well both yeah, yeah, okay, Um, and so she'll make a little snow cave, snow den, that kind of thing, um, or use an actual cave. But for the most part, she's usually just digging out

a little space for herself. And then um, she'll give birth and then nurse the cubs for at least their first twenty months. Yeah, they have to hang out with mama for a while and drink that milk. Yeah. I think maybe, um, a couple of years, maybe up to four years. They spend with mom, like learning to hunt and all that kind of stuff. Um, but yes, she doesn't leave the snow den for like the first um, several months. Yeah, dad splits after a week. He's like, my work here is done. I might even go get

someone else pregnant. They're not um and agamus. The women, the women, the females, um their lady lady bears. They they made successfully usually between the age of six and eight years old. And they only for mammal don't reproduce a lot, which is one of the reasons there's only twenty five thousand of them. They only have about five litters over their lifespan, whereas some mammals you know, I mean they just have litter upon litter every year of multiple,

multiple little cubs. Yeah, which is another reason why you know, a loss of the to the polar bear population is it's a big deal. They don't replace. Their replacement rate is kind of low, that's right. Uh. And there could be you know, a battle over mating with a female because um, it's you know, it's sparks out there. It's not the most happening scene for picking up not a firm bar, it's not a firm bar uh. So if that happens, they will fight, they won't kill each other. Um, yeah,

I thought that was kind of Yeah. Of course, the human to me is like, they know that they're dwindling, so they won't kill each other. Of course it's not true at all. That's funny because the human to me was like they they're like, it's really tough out here, so we all got to stick together. Yeah, you'd like to think that. Um, but what they do is they will they will lower their head but pin their ears

back and roar. It's kind of a lot of posturing. Um, but there could be like an injury that occurs fighting over who to mate with, right, but not to the death. Yeah, I'm sure it happens occasionally. There's probably a jerk bear every now and then. You know, this feels threatened Todd, Yeah, he's all on steroids. But when a death will happen is if anyone messes with those cubs, because Mama bear will take you down, like without thinking twice. It's very sweet.

So the little bears have been brought up by their mom. The twins Chuck and Buck, they are they have been brought up by their mom and raised to hunt hunt, hunt, and uh, now they know what they're doing. So if you could drop in on either one of those guys and actually there, I was really surprised to hear this. The males will like hang out with one another. They're not necessarily territorial. Yeah, they'll even share a meal occasionally. Yeah,

they have enough. Again, that's because they're like, it's tough out here, man, Come on, They're like, brother, can you spare a dime. I've had my hundred pounds of blubber today, which is literally how much they can eat. So um. When they hunt, they prefer ice, like a bit of ice, sea ice that they can sit on. And actually what they'll do is they look for holes in the ice. The main prey of the polar bear is the ringed seal. Yes,

their favorite. They'll they'll eat other stuff. They'll eat just about anything, a whale, carcass, alive, beluga whale that they can catch, um, walrus is whatever, but they really go nuts for ringed seals. Okay, so um. Ring seals have a thing where, whenever it's um, the ice is thin enough for them to dig through. And by thin enough, we're talking like six feet right. The seal has these um basically appendages and it's flippers that are sharp and they use it to carve holes through the sea ice.

And these are the seals breathing holes, and they make about ten to fifteen of them every season and then they'll keep them like open throughout the season. They maintain them. So they're hunting down there, they're eating their own stuff. They need to come up for air sometimes, well polar bears stake these things out because they know that a seal has to come up forever e very like five

to ten minutes. It's like whack a mole almost exactly, and they it's well, it's sad in a way, but it's also it's sad for the seal, but it's necessary and it's pretty sharp too, but it's it's an amazing waiting game that requires tons of Like you can watch videos on YouTube of a bear, and this is like a a thousand pound bear, like very gingerly because you know, the seal can see what's going on or feel it, and they very quietly walk up to these holes and

just wait like a cat almost yeah days, just waiting and smelling. They can smell like twenty miles so you can bet they can smell down into that hole. And then there's one that slow mo video of this bear like leaping up in the air and the whole basically everything but his butt and his hind legs goes down into that water grabs that seal with those claws and yeah, it's like these curse these breathing holes that I need, uh had guilt. Yeah, and the bear eats well, like

I said, about a hundred pounds in a meal. And it's also horrific, yeah, because they're white and the blood for the seal really stands out against Yeah, and on the ice and snow, it's like it does. It looks like a horror movie. But bears have actually evolved to clean up very like immediately after eating. So they'll eat and eat and eat. Like you said, they'll eat like a hundred pounds of blubber at a time, and when the hunting is good, they'll just eat the seals blubber,

right um. And actually what's interesting is the omega threes in that seal blubber actually cut down on the type of cholesterol that would allow plaque to build up in their arteries, so they can subsist basically on a diet of seal blubber. You know, it's amazing. Um. And right after they finished this meal, they're covered in blood and it's really again horrific. They'll take a bath. Depending on the time of year, they'll take a bath in the in the sea itself, or they'll take a snow bath,

and then they'll take a little nap. Well, because they need that, like you said, they need that furtive remain translucent and clean in order to stay warm and dry. So uh, yeah, they clean up to keep themselves warm, not just because they look like something out of a West Craven movie, but but also because they have to

remain camouflaged too. Yeah, exactly. Uh. Well, before we take a break, I do want to mention the very funny thing if a polar bear does not get that seal in the hole, they can throw a little hissy fit and they've been known to like pound the ice in frustration. Uh And I don't think like people are, you know, putting their stuff on the bear like they literally like when they miss the seal, start throwing things around and

beating on the ice because they're angry. Like imagine waiting at an air hole two days the seal finally comes up and you miss. Yeah, I can. I don't think it's anthropomorphizing either. It's pretty funny. All right, let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit about their dwindling ice and numbers after this. Sorry, all right, we're back. One thing we did not mention that I think it's obvious,

but we might as well say it is. The polar bear is nothing hunts the polar bear, Right, They're the king, Daddy's and mama's of their land, the apex predator. Yeah, which is a pretty good place to be. Um, the bad place to be if you're a polar bear is where you live and hunt, because, like we said, it's it's shrinking, and um, it creates a lot of problems.

We mentioned a little bit about the ecosystem. You know, they'll go in there and they'll eat birds and eggs and things like that when they have to caribou maybe, yeah, but the they're not supposed to be eating that stuff. Uh. And they're not supposed to be encountering humans as often as they are either, which is a problem in some parts of the world. But yeah, well there's actually, um a town in Manitoba called Churchill that's developed a like

basically it's made itself a tourist destination for polar bear tourism. Um. But it's like one of the few places in the world that's like an established settlement where Westerners can come and um view them. Yeah. Uh. But even in Churchill, they they occasionally have to like shoot the polar bears if they just won't leave. And apparently a little p s a here. If you ever encounter a polar bear, do not lay down and play debt. That's not what you want to do. Yeah, is it like regular bears?

You try to make yourself look big, look big, make a lot of noise, chase them off. Um. Apparently they'll break out. There's another town um in uh I think Norway. Uh that what they'll like rev their snowmobiles. They'll get the town helicopter out and try to scare them off like that. Yeah. That's the one small bard which has people and three thousand polar bears. Yeah, so they've probably

gotten pretty used to fending for themselves they have. Um for the most part, the bears will leave because from everything I saw, the polar bear in particular isn't interested in in encountering humans. It's not their thing. No, it's like almost any wildlife, they're forced into that situation. Yeah. If you look at bear attacks though, um, like a grizzly bear will attack you while you're just sleeping quietly in a sleeping bag near anywhere near and it comes

into your camp, it'll mall you your dad. The polar bear list of polar bear attacks do not include stuff like that. It's it's a polar bear that you've startled, or you're very hungry, or it's very hungry and up and have meat in your pockets. Yeah that was Yeah. In Churchill, Manitoba. There um their stats they have had two people killed in three hundred years by polar bears. Yeah, which that's pretty good trek record for one of two

towns where not bad. One of them was because these kids, uh saw a bear and started throwing rocks at it. Not a good idea. So the bear was like, all right, jerk's here I come. Uh. And then the second one, the dude had meat in his pockets, you know, yeah, who was eating in a diner. He wanted to go box. Just put that meat loaf in your pocket and he's like, I guess I will this one time and the one time.

But actually, if you do look at the polar bears stats right for attacks fatal attacks by polar bears in the United States and Canada. And remember six of all polar bears UH live in Canada, so this is a substantial amount of the polar bears. Um. There there have been eight fatal attacks in the United States and Canada bipolar bear since nineteen two. Four of those took place in zoos where humans climbed into the enclosure with the polar bear. I sold this one lady that wanted to

swim with them. Yeah, they was jumped in and got bitten on like the arm and back. It was like screaming and they fixed her out. Oh she survived. She survived. A bad idea, Um, apparently that's the thing. There's a dude in Toledo before I was born, who was found in the polar bear enclosure at the Toledo Zoo and they think he was probably on drugs, and I'm sure he was like, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna go hang out with that polar bear. But think of it.

Eight people died in the U. S and Canada since nineteen seventy two, half of them at the zoo, only four in the wild. So that's the real stat It does say a lot. It does um And you know we said make yourself look big. If you don't know what that means, that means. The big trick is to, uh, you probably got on a winter out if you're living in one of these places. So just grab the bottom of your winter coat and pull it up over your head with your arms and basically, yeah, you just appear

like large. And that's one of the big survival tips for any bear. Really just makes you look bigger and scarier, because bears are you know, actually, polar bears are pretty smart supposedly, Is that right? Yeah? I was about to say they were dumb, but they they're one of the smarter mammals. I mean, how so where did you see that? I was just on a polar bear site. You know, they were just literally ticking off all the like cognitive abilities.

But I think there's they're supposed to be much smarter than like your average brown bear. Yeah, yogi bear, Yeah there he's pretty smart. You can talk where's the tie? I think he's driven a car before you can get inside a picnic basket. I love that. When I was a kid, did you watch that? Oh? Yeah, I liked Yogi Bear from like the original series all the way through the weird stuff in like the seventies. I don't remember the weird stuff like, um, the laugh Olympics. Yea,

all that it's been off and whatnot. Yeah, so Chuck. We've talked about it indirectly a couple of times. But the Polar bears habitat is shrinking tremendously, right, The ice is literally melting, and like I was saying in that one Canadian geographic article, they were saying that the bears, the bears in the south are really having trouble and there are far more human bear encounters than they normally are. Because if a bear makes his way to shore and um,

summer strikes and the ice recedes, they're stuck. He's stuck. They have to wait around until winter comes again or a late fall and the ice starts to come back towards shore so they can swim toward it or swim

right exactly. Um. So that's that's creating a problem, especially for the ones that are in the southern range, but the ones that are in the northern range are enjoying like easier hunting than ever because the ice is thinning out for them, so they the seals can get through it more easily, so there's more seals, so there's more

hunting up north. The thing is that's not necessarily sustainable, Like they may be enjoying like a heyday right now, but eventually that ice will melt too, and well they'll be goners. Interesting because a bear can overheat from from running right, so as the temperatures increase, the bears actual physical health is in danger. Let alone there you know, habitat shrinking um. So they're not entirely certain what to do.

I looked up hunting polar bears, and I think the only the Inuit people are allowed to Well, you can get there are certain places in Canada where he can get an exemption, but it's apparently very rare and controlled and very expensive, well and expensive and and supposedly they say is is well within um the bounds of not harming the overall population number. Well again, I'm sorry to keep going back to this, well, but that Canadian geographic article, um,

I should probably say the name. I think it's called the Truth about Polar Bears totally worth reading. But um it talks a lot about managed hunting programs being a good thing or bad. They were saying, it's as long as it's done right basically everybody involved. I think they even cited the World Wildlife Fund as saying like, yeah, we should probably like manage these populations through hunting with

with very strict quotas. But yeah, the Inuits traditionally, or the Inuit and I think the Cree are two groups that have like virtually unrestricted honting. But they're they're apparently trusted to, you know, stay within these these limits. Yeah, and the people that can pay to do it, I think have to be taken in by an with guides, and they actually the Inuit families who keeps the the bear meat? Right after the rich American? Yeah, I saw that too, kills the bear, which is that's great? Who

cares about the meat? I just want to kill the bear? Yeah, I just want the head on my wall. I founded Jimmy John's. Isn't that the guy? Yeah, he's a big game hunter. Who else was? Who's the other guy? The dentist? I killed Leo the lion? Yeah, I wonder whatever happened to him I bet his dentist practice suffered. Yeah, that'd be my guess. Oh, it definitely did. But I wonder if it rebounded since since the initial since the Internet got bored and moved on to something else. Yeah, probably so.

I mean, I'm not into any hunting for myself, UM, but I've certainly hate big game hunting for anyone. You know, I would like to put a call out like, UM, anytime I've I've had discussions about hunting or whatever, and I've said, I don't, I don't see the point in our modern world of hunting. Um. It's always been countered with, well, you know, hunting is a lot more humane than the

factory sure farming that you're you're eating the meat from. Um. And I've never that's always struck me as a straw straw argument, draw me an argument, But I've never been able to exactly identify why. Or maybe it's not and that's why I've never been able to identify why. But it's it's always confounded me. Yeah, I don't. I mean I know that people talk about the populations and controlled hunting and all that being good for the population, which

I'm sure that's very valid. I'm just talking about me personally, Like when push came to shove, I like hanging out in the woods. I like camping. I like shooting guns every now and then it targets. Sure, shoot up some tin cans. It's fun. But when push came to shove, I can never like pull the trigger and kill an animal. I shot a squirrel when I was a kid, and it was just like the worst day of my life. I think I've told that story was awful. I've got

one or two of those under my belt. Yeah, and you either get into it or you don't, I guess. And all of my friends hunted growing up, you know, in Georgia at my church, like every single one of them. But my dad didn't hunt, So I didn't hunt. Yeah, he didn't take a stand. He was just he was into camping and hiking and not shooting animals. Leaving nothing

but footprints, taking nothing but photographs. Let's not take only pictures and polar bear heads, leave only footprints, leave only blood in the snow, and leave the polar bear meat behind for the Inuit. So Newt, oh, yeah, you got anything else? No, let's finish up with Newt. Everyone remembers Newt cutest polar bear ever uh in Germany, and new To died very sadly had a seizure and fell into a pool. And they think that he probably drowned once

he fell in, right, I think he had meningitis. Well, no, they finally found out what it is. They couldn't find any kind of pathogen, and so this doctor Harold Ruce for the German Center of Neurodegenerative Disease got together with UM Professor Alex Greenwood at the Leibnitz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, and they said that he had an autoimmune disease. They found out because nothing made sense about

the seizure. So they really wanted to investigate, not only for newts sake, but to you know, see if they could help other animals and the uh. It turns out that Newt is the very first animal domesticated wild ever diagnosed with an anti n m d A receptor encephalitis. Oh that's what it was. In cephalitis mais yeah, which is a non infectious form of encephalitis, which basically is when your body's own immune system attacks your brain. Is

the very first animal ever recorded to have this. So well, poor Newda, but a big breakthrough to learn this that it can happen because now they can you know, study it and new it was the the reason they can make this progress. So maybe something good can come from that. Very sad though, sure have a seizure and falling water and drown You got anything else? Nothing else? I do have one other thing that Inuit. Speaking of the Inuit, they have UM. Obviously a number of legends about polar bears.

One of them is that they're actually uh shape shifters, human shape shifters once again their iglues they shed their polar bear skin and turned back into humans. That The other is that UM when when an Inuit kills the polar bear, they will put out like an offering of tools, again with the idea that the polar bears UM have some sort of uh they share an afterlife with humans, possibly as humans UM, and that they need these tools

in the afterlife. And the better the spread of tools you give the polar bear, the more likely this polar bear is to tell other living polar bears, Hey, you should let this guy kill you because he's gonna hook you up with some amazing tools afterwards. Nice, So go ahead and let him take your life. Very spiritual. It's pretty cool. They call him Nanook, yes in a n

U K. Yeah not okay. Uh. If you want to know more about Nannook, UH, you can type the word polar Bears into the search part how stuff works dot com. And since I said Nannook, it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this letter from a young fan. Okay, good, we like those right, Yeah, of course. Hey guys, I'm a fourteen year old fan. Actually, my fifteenth birthday is tomorrow, which is now in the past, so he's already fifteen.

I wanted to get it out before then. I've been listening since last July, and I've recently been listening to the older podcast from the beginning about three years in. At this point, I've never written in before because I had no real reason to. I have recently started my freshman year at a new school. UH, and it's been hard for me because I was homeschooled before this, and I could listen to you guys whenever I wanted to. But now I'm at a charter school and I miss

having you in my ear all the time. Uh. And then he sends his name is Elias, and he sends a couple of ps s. If Jerry were to speak at the normal volume, would your microphones pick her up? Uh? No, I don't think so, Jerry, would they now she speaks? Are right? Now? These are directional mis Uh these are omnipresidental mikes. Well, that means they should pick up Jerry,

but they're not that good. Okay, uh no alias. These microphones are generally for when we put our mouths right upon them, and they're not meant to hear other things in the room. Right, That's that's what they're made for. Yeah, because Jerry's she yells at us through most of the show, no one ever hears it. There's a lot of like shaking and twitching that media and then the PPS which

is correct. Recently came across how squatters work. You gave me an example of renters who moved out, but it invited a house guess who refused to move out, which classified as a squatter. I was wondering if you could rent for a month, stop paying, and refuse to move out and invoke squatters rights, would that work. I'm not planning on trying it, but it invoked my curiosity. Alas,

I don't think that would work. Because it takes many, many years too to finally gain you know, I mean, you might be able to stay there for a little while, but I don't think you would be able to stay there for the years it would take to gain I guess ownership of the property. Is that that's what he's asking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you you'd be able to stay there throughout the legal process, but like I think, it's like thirteen years that you

have to stay somewhere well before you can. But it's years, right, Yeah, it takes a long time, and I would imagine at some point a landlord would eventually bring in Vinny and Vinny and Jimmy viny unto it to make sure can you leave? Yeah, that would be my guess. The key here, Elias, is to go find yourself an abandoned house that clearly no one wants move in there, spruced to place up and start paying taxes on it. Don't do that, But I'm just saying sure. Advice to fifteen year old listeners.

Thank you, Alis, Yeah, thanks a lot of lies. That was a good one. If you have a question, uh, then you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com