Hungry and far from their natural habitat, polar bears approach cities in search of food. But when a bear has access to man-made food, the danger is twofold.
In 2019, in Russia, photographs of around fifty polar bears made headlines around the world. The animals, lured by the smell of food waste, took over a landfill near a Russian city. If the phenomenon has challenged, it is not uncommon. More and more frequently, polar bears are seen near urban areas, their mouths in the waste dumped by humans, reveals a study published in the journal Oryx, a bimonthly on diversity.
Conflicts with man
Polar bears live and hunt on sea ice in the Arctic. Under the effect of global warming and the melting of glaciers, they are turning away from their natural environment and end up moving closer to urban areas, which are constantly expanding. Far from their favorite prey – the seal – they are attracted by the smell of human food waste and are forced to put their health at risk. “Human food is a huge problem for bears“, who ingest food “unhealthy, especially with regard to diseases, toxicity and plastic aspectswrites Geoff York, co-author of the study and senior director of conservation for the NGO Polar Bears International. What add a stress factor to a species already heavily impacted by its change of habitat.
In addition, researchers report the danger of feeding on anthropogenic products – made by humans – for these animals. “Unsafe food and food waste can cause food-conditioned bears to associate humans with food rewards, resulting in property damage, human injury, and death“, they detail.
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Many cases have proven the risk of such an amalgam, especially in brown bears. The study published in Oryx, takes the example of a famous park in the United States, the Great Yellowstone Ecosystem. In the 19th and 20th centuries, with the influx of visitors, landfills, garbage cans and constructions for storing waste multiplied in the nature reserve and very quickly, the bears appropriated this new source of food. “As they got used to the food, the conflicts escalated“, reports the study. To obtain their meal, they did not hesitate to be violent. One article reports 48 human injuries and 138 property damage between 1931 and 1969.
Proposed solutions
The polar bear invasion in Russia is an exampleextreme“, the authorities were forced to trigger a state of emergency, but which highlights the problem identified by the study, believe the authors. They recommend, with eagerness, to build in the areas at risk of the devices making it possible to secure food or food waste.
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They also encourage continuing studies on polar bears: researching methods to protect food from polar bears, evaluating the effectiveness of various deterrence and relocation efforts, improving documentation of their migrations. Time is running out, they say,the situation is likely to get worse if not addressed“, regrets Geoff York.
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