The largest and most beautiful inhabitant of the Arctic is the polar bear. The number of these animals is not very high - at present, scientists have only about 25 thousand individuals. The polar bear is listed in the Red Book because of the destructive actions of mankind.
Appearance
White bears are very large animals. The mass of the smallest representatives is not less than 100 kg, individual males can weigh up to one ton! The whole carcass of the bear is covered with a huge layer of wool of white or slightly yellowish color, which contributes to improved thermoregulation, because they live in areas with very low temperatures. In addition to wool, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat helps the animal escape from cold. The polar bear is different from other representatives of the bear community - it has a slightly different body structure, color of coat and skin (they have black). The polar bear has huge claws, thanks to which he can hunt effectively. Also, these predators are endowed with excellent vision, sensitive hearing and excellent sense of smell.
Habitat
Polar bears prefer to live near the sea and live mainly on the floating ice of the Arctic. However, in different places their numbers are not the same - somewhere the bears live very densely, somewhere you can hardly find them at all. These predators lead a nomadic lifestyle. An important criterion for choosing a place of residence in bears is the amount of food.
Food
The main food for polar bears are seals. Their predators lie in wait at the holes and pull them out on the ice with powerful blows of huge paws. Almost always, lard and the skin of seals are used for food, but sometimes, when it gets worse with food, the bear can eat the whole carcass of the victim. In addition to seals, polar bears can hunt fish, birds, sometimes walruses, and feed on carrion. In the summer, during the famine, the bears have to eat berries, algae or leaves.
Existing problems
Currently, polar bears are becoming less and less.
This is primarily due to the fact that the offspring of bears appear rather rarely (the female can give birth to cubs only once every three years) and in a small number (from one to three babies). At the age of one year, males threaten the cubs, the mortality rate at this time is high.
Secondly, poaching brings huge damage to the population. The price of black markets for the skin of an adult or for little cubs is very high.
Thirdly, a special danger is changes in climatic conditions. Global warming is causing ice melting more and more early, bears do not have time to gain the necessary reserves of fat, and in summer hunting becomes less and less effective. In search of food, these giants have to travel more and more distances, not all individuals endure it, exhausted adult bears and young cubs die.
Fourth, general environmental pollution leads to fatal consequences for polar bears. The predator lives for a long time, therefore, in his entire life he manages to accumulate all kinds of chemicals, heavy metals, oil industry products. This all affects the life expectancy and the reproductive functions of the bears themselves, as well as their nutrition - seals, fish, walruses.
Polar bears are dangerous predators. If you suddenly find yourself in close proximity to it, then most likely you will get a paw on the head or a fatal bite. However, man is still the only one who can harm a polar bear. Indeed, it is precisely because of human activities that the climatic conditions are deteriorating, which leads to a decrease in the population of these predators. In addition, these animals were hunted for a long time, either simply for fun or to sell bear carcasses.
The only thing poachers cannot find use is the polar bear's liver. It, like a filter, accumulates various chemicals and elements during the life of a predator. However, the liver of a polar bear is not poisonous. This is a completely ordinary animal organ that performs its immediate vital function. But at the same time, the liver of a polar bear contains giant reserves of vitamin A (retinol), since the main food of this animal (seals) is fed by marine animals, the fat of which replenishes the reserves of vitamin.
Of course, vitamin A is useful for vision, skin, hair and nails, but it all depends on the dose consumed. For the human body, the daily norm is from 3,000 to 3,700 IU of retinol. One gram of the polar bear’s liver contains up to 20,000 IU of this vitamin. This is a huge amount! Therefore, it is extremely dangerous for a person to use this product.
What happens if you eat the liver of a polar bear?
Previously, before certain scientific studies and identifying the causes, there were frequent cases of serious poisoning. No one could understand the reason for the strongest intoxication of the body, headaches, indigestion, impaired consciousness, body aches, further skin discharge, in severe cases - an increase in internal organs, hemorrhages and, ultimately, deaths. Such symptoms appeared just after eating a polar bear liver, as well as whales, seals, walruses. Scientists subsequently suggested that, most likely, the point is the excessive entry into the human blood of any substances from these products. Further studies confirmed this theory, and it turned out that just such a huge amount of vitamin A in the liver of these marine animals leads to such poisoning.
Thus, finally, it became clear what happened before with sad results and why it is impossible to eat the polar bear’s liver at all.