Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Polar Bears Work

Episode Date: December 10, 2022

Polar bears are more than just lovable creatures that roam the ice in search of food. They're one of the most fascinating animals on planet Earth. Sadly, as ice shrinks, so does their habitat. Learn all about these huggable beasts in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-Pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Just a Skyline drive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning everybody, it's Saturday and it's Chuck and that means it's time for a select episode where we handpick and curate some of our favorite episodes over the years to be re-released on Saturdays in case you don't have anything going on. This one goes all the way back to September 29th, 2016 and it's about polar bears. They are super fascinating and cool and you will walk away with more than one dinner party fact that you can throw at your friends. How polar bears work right now.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, this is Charles W. Chuck. Chuck Bryant. I'm scratching out a significant amount of this article. Literally as we started recording. That's important stuff, there's numbers and dates and weights and temperatures and that. That's important stuff you just scratched out. I feel like it's all covered in the body of the text of the article though.

Well I mean that's one way to do an intro as anybody in journalism can tell you. You can write the article and then go back and summarize it as an intro. I've never been partial to that. The intro to me is just like this stream of consciousness that tells you where the rest of the article is going to go because you don't know man, because it's all jazz baby. 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 study polar bears up close and personal. They look cuddly, but they will- Especially newt. Yeah. Remember newt?

Yeah, I got a little bit about newt. Very sad. But you're going to 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 eaten. Oh yeah. If you're lucky, that's all that happens to you. I saw pictures of a guy who survived a polar bear attack. Oh my goodness.

He was messed up. I guess it was still attached, but three quarters of his scalp was now flip backable. There's a hole clear through his Achilles tendon and his ankle, so his Achilles tendon was intact and the top of his, the front of his ankle was intact, but in between the two is 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 and- So deadly. Yeah. You know, if you hug a polar bear, it's bad news. Yeah. It's black widows that marry and kill. Right. Well, that's just my interpretation of polar bears.

You mean the ursus maritimus? Yeah. Maritimus is 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. It's usually in the sea sometimes, as we'll find out. Right. Well, I guess we're knee deep in this thing, huh?

Yeah, because you skipped the intro. So the polar bear, what they think, and I enjoy our animal casts a lot. Me too. And they're some of my favorite ones. I just wanted to say that. Although the polar bear doesn't, despite its huggability, doesn't compete with the jellyfish or the octopus. Sure.

But it's up there. Sure, it is. Because you can hug a jellyfish. You know, I think. And an octopus. That's a great hug. Yeah. Eight times as good.

Yeah, they won't let go. I guess four times as good. Yeah. All right. So the polar bear. Two times as good. Because polar bear has four. No, I mean, as a human hug.

Oh, okay. So Jerry even liked that one. 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 is between five million and six hundred thousand years. Really? Uh-huh.

Because I saw the two hundred thousand 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, I think that might be right. They threw down the gauntlet. Yeah.

Well, let's just say, let's go with the scientific consensus. Okay. And not our own article on our own website. Right. But they did evolve from the brown bear, they think. And one of the ways that they back this up is by saying polar bear can go have sex with the brown bear and they can make a baby bear and that bear can actually have babies. Yeah.

Which means everything jibes. Do you remember, I think it was our evolution and isolation episode? Ah, that was a good one. Where we talked about speciation events. And we talked about this, how the brown bear just kept ranging further and further north. And as their kind of habitat changed, they actually evolved 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 and double checked and I was like, oh, polar bears are different species, but it can reproduce with brown bears. And it does make sense because humans in Neanderthals or Neanderthals, if you're a pet ant, could reproduce and have fertile offspring.

And they're definitely two different species of humans. Yeah, that's true. Right? Yeah, they were. Well, occasionally people get together and have a few drinks and science is created. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. So there are way more brown bears, everyone knows, and we're going to 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 as the official listings is threatened or the like. It depends on the country it's in. Yeah, but they're not doing great. There's only about 25,000 polar bears and their habitat is shrinking, literally, physically

shrinking. Yeah, that's the big problem is that the melting of Arctic sea ice, as we'll see is, the Arctic sea ice is where they live. They live on ice floating out in the Arctic Ocean 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 of climate change is affecting them tremendously. Yeah, and affecting the rest of the ecosystem.

But yeah, definitely, because say like if they get stranded on land, they start hunting on like for land mammals, which affects the ecosystem and that now they're competition that's not normally there for prey. Exactly. You know? There's a lot of ripple effects that are coming out of it. But one thing I did see is that the polar bears that are really, really far north are actually benefiting from the melting ice because it's easier for them to hunt now.

Because there's just less area to cover? It's the ice is thinner. So they can hunt more easily on it. Interesting. Yeah. Well, it's a good thing you said north because you're not going to find polar bears at the south pole where Santa lives. And penguins.

No, Santa lives at the north pole. 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. And penguins and polar bears would never meet. Yeah, that's true.

Except maybe at a zoo. Yeah, that is true. They had polar bears at the San Diego Zoo. There's a polar bear 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. Oh, really? It's name is Pizza and it is the Pizza the Polar Bear.

Wow. It's the saddest. I think it's billed as the saddest polar bear on the planet. Oh, man. It's so sad. Look into it, Chuck. I'll sign the petition. 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. Okay. Do petitions matter? Do they make a difference? I think if they're accompanied with the right media pressure, or like a mafia thug to deliver the papers.

I got a petition for you. I highly recommend you read it. So polar bears do live only in the northern hemisphere. Those 25,000 are in 19 distinct populations in just five countries, including the United States. Yeah, that's funny because their habitat is at the top of the world where five countries basically come together. Yeah.

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 them that they wouldn't be able to tell you. Russia is another big one. Norway? Yeah. In Greenland?

That is correct. And it is tough living up there for humans, but not for polar bears. They love it. They're well adapted over the years. Yeah, supposedly if they run for any bit of time, they have to stop and lay down. Because they'll overheat and they will exhaust themselves. Yeah, I identified a lot when I was reading this with polar bear. Right.

I kind of like these guys. They are incredibly well adapted, which is another reason why I think they don't think it's any less than 600,000 years that they evolved from brown bears because it would take so long for these. They're really different from brown bears. Brown bears are basically herbivores. Polar bears are carnivores. They eat seal blubber.

Brown bears eat berries in the occasional human on accident, maybe. But polar bears are like, give me some seals, I want them. I bet they would eat some berries if someone offered them up for dessert, maybe, but there are no berries. Right. 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 a full blubber layer that's about 4.5 inches thick of just blubber. They're supposedly like 50% of their weight at any given time or when they're fully developed or nourished is blubber, is their own fat. Since you mentioned the weight, we'll go ahead and throw some stats out. Adult males, eight or nine feet? Nine feet. Yeah.

Apparently, that's the biggest bear. The polar bear is the biggest of the bears, from what I understand. Not the baronstein bears. Baronstein. Adult females, six to eight feet and the males weigh up to 1,300 pounds. Nine feet tall and 1,300 pounds. Yes. 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 were accurate. The females can get up to about 700 pounds. This clause I mentioned about two inches and they live about 20 years. Yeah.

I was surprised by that. That's really short. 20 years? Sure. I didn't think that was too bad for a bear. Oh, I thought it was very short. What did you think? It's a good bear span for you, lifespan.

Like 40 or 50 years? Yeah. That's what I want to see for a bear. Yeah. Well, we all do. Let's be honest. In 20 years, this is like live, fast, die, young type age. They're paws, which we mentioned the clause.

They have these big, beautiful, fat, round paws that act like snowshoes and they walk and they spread out when they walk on the ice and distribute their weight. In fact, when they're on thin ice, they even spread their arms out wider. It's very cute. They have these little papillae on their bottom paws, these little nubs because ice is slippery and the front paws are actually slightly webbed for swimming. It's amazing. Yeah.

Like you said, it's a seabare. It is. The Maritimus, Ursa Maritimus. Let's talk about some of its actual habits and the things it does after a break. You want to? You want to go clubbing? Yeah. You want to have fun?

You want to go clubbing? Go clubbing. You want to go clubbing? Go clubbing. Go clubbing. Go clubbing. Go clubbing. Go clubbing.

Go clubbing. I'm Mangesh Chitikatha and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second-hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it.

So I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, cancelled marriages, K-pop? But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology? It changed.

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuck, you mentioned their fur, right? Yeah. So you know their fur is translucent. That's right. It's not actually white.

We talked about that on another episode at some point. Probably the evolve in isolation one. Yeah. Or maybe it's translucent, or maybe the butterfly's wings one. Yeah. I can't remember what it's called. Iridescence. Iridescence.

That was a really interesting episode too. It was. But yeah, their 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, have you ever camped when it was cold? All you need is one of those little thin blow-up mats because your body heat warms the air underneath it. Thermarest.

Right. That's a brand name, but sure. Right. Okay. So it's the same thing, but this is their fur that's doing that. Yeah. And since it's hollow and translucent, it actually scatters all colors of light and creates this white appearance like a quartz wood or something like that.

Yeah, it's amazing. So they're not actually white coated in white fur. It's all an illusion. Yeah. So if it was all polar bear in New York City, it would be the color of street garbage. Right, like a chameleon. It's not true. Street garbage color.

What color is that? Well, you know. It's a grayish mustard. Yeah. It's like a pizza box, and there'll be some recycling, and then just some, just New York apartment detritus. It's like the colors of the rainbow. Yeah.

All right, so the fur is 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 have adapted to be small because it's not as insulated with that blubber. So it requires less energy to heat, and it has less surface 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 that a mammal is,

you could imagine. Yes. They are routinely comfortable and apparently have no heat loss whatsoever at temperatures of like negative, what is it like? Negative 50 Fahrenheit. Negative 50. Yeah. That's the temperature they're comfortable in, and they actually, yeah, they experienced

no change in body temperature. A temperature of negative 34 degrees Fahrenheit, which is negative 37 Celsius. Amazing. Yeah. They're just like, they're unaffected by it. Yeah. They're that well suited to the environment. So we mentioned them walking.

They can walk a great distances up to 30, I'm sorry, 20 miles, 30 kilometers a day for days and days in a row, and they've been tracked swimming up to 60 miles, which is amazing. Okay. One other thing? Yeah. I saw a Canadian geographic article, which is a thing, and this was a 2012 article and they mentioned a recent study, so probably 2010, 2011, maybe 2012 study, found polar bears swimming as a result of climate change up to 687 kilometers.

Wow. That's 426 miles. That's to get from ice to ice. Yes. Man, that's sad. That's 6 miles. These things are just swimming. 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, and it's where they hunt most importantly. Yeah. So they don't, another big difference with the brown bears, they don't hibernate like your average bear. Do you like that? They'll sort of semi-hybernate when they're kind of pre- and post-pregnancy, but it's not true hibernation in like the biological sense.

You want to talk about mating? Oh. Sure. Specifically, polar bear mating? Oh, yeah. I guess we should. So again, they are a fairly not closely studied mammal population, right? So scientists actually aren't entirely sure how females signal to males that they're

ready to reproduce. Right. And the reason why is the females don't appear to actually go into any kind of heat. They have something called induced ovulation, right? Yes. Which is, once they're mating, they start to ovulate. Yeah. Actually, the intercourse is what causes the ovulation.

Right. And not always. In a couple of times. Yeah. You got to be good. You got to know what you're doing, right? And once they actually do make, I guess, sure, once the egg is fertilized, 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, the fetus is just waiting while the mom eats, and eats, and eats, and prepares for that long period, as we'll see where she has her little cub and- Cubs. Yeah, a couple at a time. Usually twins. Isn't that cute?

Well, you've seen polar bear cubs, right? Yeah. It's pretty adorable. Twins, Chuck. 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. They're toast. Zero chance. Yeah. Like you said, they're born blind and without teeth. They have really thin fur, no insulation. They weigh about a pound and they're a foot long, which is really tiny for a bear that's going to grow into 1,300 pounds.

Oh, yeah. And yeah, mom makes a den when she's carrying her embryos and starts to fatten up. She goes and makes a little winter den, sometimes a snow den, which by the way, you should see that movie, Snowden. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. The documentary or the movie?

Well, both. Yeah. Okay. And so she'll make a little snow cave, snow den, that kind of thing, or use an actual cave, but for the most part, she's usually just digging out a little space for herself. And then she'll give birth and then nurse the cubs for at least their first 20 months. Yeah. They have to hang out with mama for a while and drink that milk.

Yeah. I think maybe a couple of years, maybe up to four years they spend with mom, like learning to hunt and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, she doesn't leave the snow den for the first several months. Yeah. Dad splits after a week. Right. He's like, my work here is done.

I might even go get someone else pregnant. Right. They're not monogamous. The women, the females, they're lady bears. They mate successfully usually between the age of six and eight years old, and they only, for a mammal, don't reproduce a lot, which is one of the reasons there's only 25,000 of them. They only have about five litters over their lifespan, whereas some mammals, they just

have litter upon litter every year of multiple, multiple little cubs. Yeah, which is another reason why a loss to the polar bear population is a big deal. They don't replace, their replacement rate is kind of low. That's right, and there could be a battle over mating with a female because it's sparse out there. It's not the most happened in scene for picking up. It's not a fern bar. No, it's not a fern bar.

So if that happens, they will fight. They won't kill each other. Yeah, I thought that was kind of neat. Yeah, of course, the human and me is like, they know that they're dwindling, so they won't kill each other. Right. Of course, it's not true at all. It's funny because the human and me, they're like, it's really tough out here, so we all

got to stick together. Yeah, you'd like to think that. But what they do is they will lower their head, but pin their ears back and roar. It's kind of a lot of posturing, 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.

This feels threatened. Todd. 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 without thinking twice. Right. It's very sweet. So the little bears have been brought up by their mom, the twins, Chuck and Buck. They have been brought up by their mom and raised to hunt, hunt, hunt, and now they know

what they're doing. So if you could drop in on either one of those guys, and actually, I was really surprised to hear this, that males will hang out with one another. They're not necessarily territorial. Yeah, they'll even share a meal occasionally because they have enough. Again, that's because they're like, it's tough out here, man. Come on. Yeah.

Can you spare a dime? I've had my 100 pounds of blubber today, which is literally how much they can eat. So 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. Yeah. It's their favorite. They'll eat other stuff.

They'll eat just about anything, a whale carcass, a live beluga whale that they can catch. Walruses, whatever, but they really go nuts for ringed seals. Yeah. Okay. So ringed seals have a thing where whenever the ice is thin enough for them to dig through and by thin enough, we're talking like six feet. Yeah. Right?

The seal has these basically appendages on its flippers that are sharp. Yeah. And they use it to carve holes through the sea ice. Mm-hmm. And these are the seals' breathing holes. And they make about 10 to 15 of them every season. And then they'll keep them open throughout the season. They maintain them.

Yeah. 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 for air every like five to 10 minutes. Yeah. It's like whack-a-mole almost.

Exactly. Yeah. And they, well, it's sad in a way, but it's also sad for the seal. It is. But it's necessary. It's sharp, too. But it's an amazing waiting game that requires tons of patience. Yeah.

Like you can watch videos on YouTube of a bear, and this is like a 1,000-pound bear, like very gingerly because, you know, the seal can see what's going on or feel it. Right. And they very quietly walk up to these holes and just wait like a cat almost. Hours. Yeah. Days. Just waiting and smelling.

They can smell like 20 miles. Right. So you can bet they can smell down into that hole. Sure. And then there's one slow-mo video of this bear, like leaping up in the air, and the hole, basically everything but his butt and his hind legs goes down into that water, grabs that seal with those claws, and the seal goes, yeah, he's like these, curse these breathing holes that I need.

Why couldn't I have had gill? Yeah. And the bear eats well, like I said, about 100 pounds in a meal. And it's also horrific because they're white and the blood from the seal really stands out against them. 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 100 pounds of blubber at a time. And when the hunting's good, they'll just eat the seal's blubber, right? And actually, what's interesting is that Omega-3s in that seal blubber actually cut down on the type of cholesterol that would allow plaque to build up in their arteries. Oh, wow. So they can subsist basically on a diet of seal blubber.

Yeah. It's amazing. And right after they finish 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 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 fur to remain translucent and clean in order to stay warm and dry.

So yeah, they clean up to keep themselves warm, not just because they look like something out of a Wes Craven movie. Right. But also because they have to remain camouflaged, too. Yeah, exactly. 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 pound the ice in frustration.

And I don't think people are putting their stuff on the bear. 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 hall for two days. The seal finally comes up and you miss. Yeah, I don't think it's anthropomorphizing either. Yeah, 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. I'm Mange Shatikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for

it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Patrick curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed.

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. There's a Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. One thing we did not mention that I think is obvious, but we might as well say it, is the polar bear, is nothing hunts the polar bear. Right. They are the king daddies and mamas of their land.

The apex predator. Yeah, which is a pretty good place to be. The bad place to be, if you're a polar bear, is where you live and hunt because like we said, it's shrinking and it creates a lot of problems. We mentioned a little bit about the ecosystem. They'll go in there and they'll eat birds and eggs and things like that when they have to, caribou maybe. On the shore?

Shoreline? Yeah, but they're not supposed to be eating that stuff. 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. Yeah, well, there's actually a town in Manitoba called Churchill that's developed a, basically, it's made itself a tourist destination for polar bear tourism. But it's like one of the few places in the world that's like an established settlement where Westerners can come and.

View them? Yeah. But even in Churchill, they occasionally have to shoot the polar bears if they just won't leave. Yeah. And apparently, little PSA here, if you ever encounter a polar bear, do not lay down and play dead. 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. Apparently, they'll break out. There's another town in I think Norway that they'll rev their snowmobiles, they'll get the town helicopter out and try to scare them off like that. Yeah, that's the one Svalbard, which has 2,300 people and 3,000 polar bears.

Yeah. So they've probably gotten pretty used to fending for themselves. Yeah. They have. For the most part, the bears will leave because from everything I saw, the polar bear in particular isn't interested 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, like a grizzly bear will attack you while you're just sleeping quietly in a sleeping bag and anywhere near it and it comes into your camp, it'll maul you. You're dead. Just a polar bear, a list of polar bear attacks do not include stuff like that. It's a polar bear that you've startled or you're very hungry or it's very hungry and

you happen to have meat in your pockets. Yeah. That was... Yeah. In Churchill, Manitoba, their stats, they have had two people killed in 300 years by polar bears. Yeah. That's a pretty good track record for one of two towns where...

Not bad. Yeah. ...because these kids saw a bear and started throwing rocks at it. Not a good idea. So the bear was like, all right, jerks, here I come. And then the second one, a dude had meat in his pocket. You know? Yeah.

He was eating at a diner. He wanted it to go box. Got his meatloaf. They're like, just put that meatloaf 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 bear stats, right? For attacks. There have been eight fatal attacks by polar bears in the United States and Canada. And remember, 60% of all polar bears live in Canada.

Yeah. So this is a substantial amount of the polar bears. There have been eight fatal attacks in the United States and Canada by polar bears since 1972. Four of those took place in zoos where humans climbed into the enclosure with the polar bear. I saw this one lady that wanted to swim with them. Yeah. She jumped in and got bitten on like the arm and back and was like screaming and they

fished her out. Oh, she survived? She survived. What a bad idea. Yeah. Apparently that's a thing. There was 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 going to be great. I'm going to go hang out with that polar bear. But think of it, eight people died in the US and Canada since 1972. Half of them at the zoo. Only four in the wild. Yeah. So that's the real stat. It does say a lot.

It does. And you know, we said make yourself look big. If you don't know what that means, that means the big trick is to, you probably got on a winter coat 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. Right.

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. Yogi is pretty smart. Where's the tie? Yeah.

I think he's driven a car before. You can get inside a picnic basket. I'd love that when I was a kid. Did you watch that? Oh yeah. Yogi bear. I liked Yogi bear from like the original series all the way through the weird stuff in like the 70s.

I don't remember the weird stuff. Like the Laugh Olympics. Oh yeah, yeah, sure. All that. Spinoffs and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah. I talked about it indirectly a couple of times, but the polar bear's habitat is shrinking

tremendously, right? Yes. The ice is literally melting. And like I was saying in that one Canadian geographic article, they were saying the bears, the bears in the south are really having trouble. And there are far more human bear encounters than there normally are because if a bear makes his way to shore and summer strikes and the ice recedes, they're stuck. He's stuck.

Yeah. They have to wait around until winter comes again or late fall and the ice starts to come back toward shore so they can swim toward it. Yeah. Or swim 400 miles. Right, exactly. So 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 the seals can get through it more easily. So there's more seals. So there's more hunting up north. The thing is, 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 running, right?

So as the temperatures increase, the bear's actual physical health is in danger, let alone they're habitat shrinking. So they're not entirely certain what to do. I looked up hunting polar bears and I think that only the Inuit people are allowed to. Well you can get, there are certain places in Canada where you can get an exemption, but it's apparently very rare and controlled. And very expensive. Well, inexpensive and supposedly they say is well within 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, I should probably say the name. I think it's called like the truth about polar bears? Yeah. Totally worth reading. But it talks a lot about managed hunting programs. Being a good thing or bad?

They were saying 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 manage these populations through hunting 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 hunting. Like native rights. But they're apparently trusted to stay within these limits. Yeah.

And the people that can pay to do it, I think have to be taken in by Inuit guides. And they actually, the Inuit families are who keeps the bear meat 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 Johns. Isn't that the guy? Yeah, he's a big game hunter. Who else? Who's the other guy? The dentist? That killed Leo the lion? Yeah.

I wonder what ever 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 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, but I certainly hate big game hunting for

anyone. You know, I would like to put a call out. Anytime I've had discussions about hunting or whatever, I've said, I don't see the point in our modern world of hunting. It's always been countered with, well, hunting's a lot more humane than the factory farming that you're eating the meat from, and it's always struck me as a straw argument, straw man 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 always

confounded me. Yeah, I know that people talk about the populations and control hunting and all that, being good for the population, which I'm sure that's very valid. I'm just talking about me personally. When push came to shove, I like hanging out in the woods, I like camping, I like shooting guns every now and then at targets, sure, shoot up some tin cans, it's fun, but when push came to shove, I could never pull the trigger and kill an animal. I shot a squirrel when I was a kid, and it was just the worst day of my life.

I think I've told that story, it 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 in Georgia at my church, 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 into camping and hiking and not shooting animals.

Leaving nothing but footprints. Yeah, taking only pictures. Taking nothing but photographs. Yeah. It'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, Newt.

You got anything else? No. Let's finish up with Newt. Everyone remembers Newt. The polar bear ever in Germany and Newt 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 Proust for the German Center of Neurodegenerative Disease, got together with Professor Alex Greenwood at the Leibniz 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 Newt's sake but to see if they could help other animals. Right.

And it turns out that Newt is the very first animal domesticated wild ever diagnosed with an anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Oh, that's what it was, encephalitis, not meningitis. Yeah, which is a non-infectious form of encephalitis, which basically is when your body's own immune system attacks your brain. Wow. It's the very first animal ever recorded to have this. Poor Newt.

Well, poor Newt, but a big breakthrough to learn this. That it can happen? Yeah. Yeah. Because now they can study it and Newt was the reason that they can make this progress. So maybe something good can come from that. Yeah. Very sad though.

Sure. So you don't have to get into a seizure and fall into water and drown? Yeah. Ooh. Got anything else? Got nothing else. I do have one other thing that Inuit, speaking of the Inuit, they have obviously a number of legends about polar bears.

Sure. One of them is that they're actually shape shifters, human shape shifters. Once again, they're igloos. They shed their polar bear skin and turn back into humans. I like that. The other is that when Inuit kills a polar bear, they will put out an offering of tools. Again with the idea that the polar bears have some sort of, they share an afterlife with humans, possibly as humans, and that they need these tools in the afterlife.

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 going to hook you up with some amazing tools afterward. Nice. So go ahead and let them take your life. Very spiritual. It's pretty cool. Do they call them Nanook?

Yes. N-A-N-U-K. Yeah. Not O-O-K. If you want to know more about Nanook, you can type the word polar bears into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com and since I said Nanook, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this a letter from a young fan. Okay, good.

We like those, right? Yeah, of course. Hey guys, I'm a 14-year-old fan. Actually, my 15th birthday is tomorrow, which is now in the past, so he's already 15. 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. I'm about three years in at this point, I've never written in before because I had no real

reason to. I recently started my freshman year at a new school 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. And then he sends, his name is Elias, and he sends a couple of PSs. If Jerry were to speak at a normal volume, would your microphones pick her up? Uh, no. I don't think so, Jerry.

Would they? No. She shakes it right now. These are directional mics? These are omnipresental mics. Well, that means they should pick up Jerry. Right, but they're not that good. Oh, okay.

No, Elias, 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 what they're made for. Yeah, because Jerry, she yells at us through most of the show. Yeah. She hears it. There's a lot of like shaking and twitching that we do. And then to PPS, which is correct, uh, recently came across how squatters work.

Uh, you gave an example of renters who moved out, but it invited a house guest 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. Elias, I don't think that would work because it takes many, many years to, uh, 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, uh, I guess, ownership of the property. Oh, 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 13 years that you have to stay somewhere. Well, before you can. Okay. Yeah. But it's years, right? Yeah. It takes a long time. Sure.

And I would imagine at some point a landlord would eventually bring in, uh, Vinnie and, uh, Vinnie and Jimmy. Vinnie and Toots. Yeah. Vinnie and Toots to make sure 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, spruce the place up and start paying taxes on it. Don't do that. All right. I'm paying. Sure. Advice to 15 year old listeners. Thank you, Elias. Yeah.

Thanks a lot, Elias. That was a good one. Uh, 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.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio.

For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed.

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.