Preserving the balance of nature.

El Guapo!

What's the point in this?

I was watching a documentary last night about polar bears and this guy was following a polar bear and her two cubs for a year. Long story short, due to global warming the ice melted earlier in the year and won't freeze again till very late, which left the polar bear family stranded with no way to hunt seals. One cub died which left just the mother and the other cub.
They roamed around the island searching for scraps of food and the mother was basically trying to live off moss and seaweed. The cub was still suckling the mother but because the mother was becoming weaker and weaker, she couldn't provide the milk for the cub and they both began to starve.
The mother went extremely skinny and looked awful and eventually resorted to eating washed up plastic from fishermens boats out of pure desperation.

The guy doing the documentary got very upset about this and said there's a good chance they won't survive. He said he'd love to help them but its against the law to feed them as its too dangerous to let the polar bears associate humans with food.
Now, I totally understand this bit but he didn't have to go up and give food directly to the polar bear family. He could have easily left food in their path and the bears would never have known where it came from. There was plenty of whale meat nearby but the bears couldn't find it.

I know that no matter how much you want to, you shouldn't interfere with nature and just let it take its course. And you shouldn't stop a lion from eating a gazelle just because you feel sorry for the gazelle. That's fair enough. But when you see an animal physically starving and unable to feed her cub, why shouldn't you try to help? Especially when it's an animal that is becoming increasingly more endangered such as the polar bear.

They say humans shouldn't interfere with nature. Circle of life and all that. But isn't it human nature to try to help someone in need, animal or man? Especially when an argument can be made that its partly as a result of our actions that puts these animals in such a position.

smash

Dean09 wrote: »

Long story short, due to global warming the ice melted earlier in the year and won't freeze again till very late

It's called climate change now because global warming was a myth... did you not get the memo?

kneemos

Apparently polar bear numbers are as high as ever.

Bejubby

He may have fed them off camera,as who's to know then.

I feed the birds out the back anyway so that law isn't very well implemeted.

Scanlas The 2nd

Dean09 wrote: »

What's the point in this?

I was watching a documentary last night about polar bears and this guy was following a polar bear and her two cubs for a year. Long story short, due to global warming the ice melted earlier in the year and won't freeze again till very late, which left the polar bear family stranded with no way to hunt seals. One cub died which left just the mother and the other cub.
They roamed around the island searching for scraps of food and the mother was basically trying to live off moss and seaweed. The cub was still suckling the mother but because the mother was becoming weaker and weaker, she couldn't provide the milk for the cub and they both began to starve.
The mother went extremely skinny and looked awful and eventually resorted to eating washed up plastic from fishermens boats out of pure desperation.

The guy doing the documentary got very upset about this and said there's a good chance they won't survive. He said he'd love to help them but its against the law to feed them as its too dangerous to let the polar bears associate humans with food.
Now, I totally understand this bit but he didn't have to go up and give food directly to the polar bear family. He could have easily left food in their path and the bears would never have known where it came from. There was plenty of whale meat nearby but the bears couldn't find it.

I know that no matter how much you want to, you shouldn't interfere with nature and just let it take its course. And you shouldn't stop a lion from eating a gazelle just because you feel sorry for the gazelle. That's fair enough. But when you see an animal physically starving and unable to feed her cub, why shouldn't you try to help? Especially when it's an animal that is becoming increasingly more endangered such as the polar bear.

They say humans shouldn't interfere with nature. Circle of life and all that. But isn't it human nature to try to help someone in need, animal or man? Especially when an argument can be made that its partly as a result of our actions that puts these animals in such a position.

Did you never hear of the prime directive?

spank_inferno

As heartbreaking as it may have been, there was not much he could have done.

He or whatever support crew nearby would not have had food in the quantity needed to make much of a difference.

AnonoBoy

Polar Bears are still loaded from all that Coca Cola and Fox's Glacier Mint royalties. They'll be fine.

dienbienphu

i don't think the cameraman would of held that view if the polar turned on him and decided to eat him.

El Guapo!

spank_inferno wrote: »

As heartbreaking as it may have been, there was not much he could have done.

He or whatever support crew nearby would not have had food in the quantity needed to make much of a difference.

There was a whole whale carcass nearby. Even some of that could have gotten them through till the area froze over again.

I just think its a shame to stand by and watch a family of polar bears slowly starve to death when they could easily help if they wanted to.

Where To

Why didn't humans help to save all the billions of species that became extinct before humans existed?

El Guapo!

Where To wrote: »

Why didn't humans help to save all the billions of species that became extinct before humans existed?

But why shouldn't we help now if we can?

kneemos

If the bears die something else lives by feeding on them,it's nature.

padi89

They didn't know what happened the first cub so we can't say it was due to the lack of sea ice.

If they did leave food it would only prolong the animals starvation. The bear had months to go before the sea ice returned, a small amount of food would have been pointless.

Their scent would have been left on the food, as they mentioned they would associate humans with food.

That's reality unfortunately, as hard as it was to watch it's not right to interfere just because it tugs on your heart strings.

As someone else mentioned, if they die then they provide food for other animals, possibly bears that are stronger and who will make it.

castletownman

Polar bears aren't white. They're black with translucent fur.

Not sure it goes a long way to answer the original question but I thought it was an interesting fact nonetheless.

Where To

Dean09 wrote: »

But why shouldn't we help now if we can?

Why should we?
We're just another animal in a small eco system. It's not up to us.

some_dose

Where To wrote: »

Why didn't humans help to save all the billions of species that became extinct before humans existed?

Ehhh because we didn't exist?

Where To

some_dose wrote: »

Ehhh because we didn't exist?

So what? That's no excuse, why didnt we help them?

kneemos

castletownman wrote: »

Polar bears aren't white. They're black with translucent fur.

Not sure it goes a long way to answer the original question but I thought it was an interesting fact nonetheless.

You my friend are more worthy than the other animals around here.