Polar bears in the western Hudson Bay area have become more flexible with their diet due to climate change.
Linda Gormezano, lead author of the study and a vertebrate biologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and her colleagues found that the polar bears have began hunting for food on land because of the melting sea ice in the Arctic.
"We found they were eating more of what is available on the land". Some of these include snow geese, eggs and caribou. It is however still unclear if this new strategy can compensate for the negative impacts from climate change," Gormezano said to LiveScience.com.
According to Polar Bears International, polar bears rely on seals and other marine mammals for food. When the sea ice melts, polar bears hunt for different foods like snow geese (and other animals) as well as mushroom and berries. However, since the Arctic sea ice continues to melt due to global warming, the polar bears are unable to feast on their regular diet like seal pups before they move up to land.
The researchers took a video of polar bears in western Hudson Bay chasing, killing and eating snow geese. Another study in the journal Ecology and Evolution compared polar bear scat from modern times with an analysis from 1968 to 1969 and found that modern scat contained caribou and goose eggs while back then scat contained very few remnants of snow geese. This suggested that changes have occurred in the polar bear's diet.
"It shows that [the polar bears] are flexible and they can change their behavior," Gormezano added.
While the flexibility of the polar bear's diet may have advantages, it is unlikely that their foraging can save them from the effects of climate change.
According to the National Wildlife Foundation, global warming causes a population decrease, make swimming conditions dangerous, lessen hunting opportunity and increase scarcity of food on the polar bears.
