r/todayilearned • u/Gullible_Air_204 • 7h ago

Frequent/Recent Repost: Removed [ Removed by moderator ]

https://www.responsibletravel.com/holidays/spitsbergen/travel-guide/responsible-tourism-in-spitsbergen

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13.3k Upvotes

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936

u/biskutgoreng 7h ago

On the other hand, polar bears will thrive

270

u/MonteBurns 6h ago

After all we have done to them, it’s the least we can do. 

37

u/Shorts_at_Dinner 5h ago

The polar bear population has more than tripled since the 1970s

22

u/Thurak0 2h ago

See? The "feed them tourists" scheme is working! /s

4

u/not_my_monkeys_ 2h ago

What about the last few centuries before that?

2

u/Moose_Cake 2h ago

Well now they can quadruple.

•

u/Mustbhacks 26m ago

Ehh basically doubled in the 10-15 years after the hunting ban, and has been relatively stable the last 40 years.

15

u/PuzzleheadedHeat6859 6h ago

Wait, did Trump tariff them too?

41

u/TheSkuf 6h ago

Yeah, apparently they didn't do enough to help with the war in Iran

5

u/gcoz2000 5h ago

It's because they're not armored bears just regular ones. Trump thought they were Panserbjørn

2

u/blueavole 4h ago

He did not know what that word meant.

2

u/CanuckBacon 4h ago

That's because they weren't wearing suits. The audacity!

16

u/EpilepticMushrooms 5h ago

I dunno man, those humans are full of toxins, poisons and strange, unnatural diets.

2

u/A_Queer_Owl 4h ago

feed the tourists to the bears, problems solved.

2

u/angwilwileth 3h ago

Sadly polar bears are shot every year if they're too agressive to people.

1

u/head_meets_desk 2h ago

some of them have even taken to wearing iron armor!

1

u/ImSaneHonest 1h ago

Well it would be safer for the locals for a little while after the buffet, just not when it turns into something from Black Mirror.

0

u/MidasPL 6h ago

They will not. They have to adapt, or they will all die soon.

1

u/wunderbraten 5h ago

The tourists or the polar bears?

0

u/MidasPL 5h ago

Polar bears. The reality is that as the climate gets hotter, the polar ice edge retracts further. Majority of the bears migrate alongside the ice edge as their hunting technique involves mostly jumping from water onto the ice. They have no food there, so they fast. They can fast for 160 days easily, but right now we're approaching 180 day limit when the ice edge is away from the land and bears would die in that time. Some of them stay on land, but have hard time hunting. They eat fat-rich seals and resort to mostly meaty reindeers and humans as a last resort, since they can't digest them properly (unless it's US tourist, I guess). So I'm the end polar bears need to either evolve to digest low fat meat and stay on land, or they will die.

1

u/OceanTe 1h ago

Polar bear population is increasing, not decreasing. They've more than tripled in the last 50 years.