Polar bears are being subjected to severe living conditions as the Arctic’s ice caps continue to melt, and without their precious ice, they have a much harder time hunting for prey. Unfortunately for this malnourished polar bear mother, she has an eight-month-old cub that needs tending to, and there doesn’t seem to be any easy food in sight.
Evident by her loose-hanging skin, she lacks the body fat that a healthy polar bear would have and she’s hungry. Without her, the cub isn’t likely to survive into its adult years, and so she becomes a lot more brazen then she’d normally be, taking potentially uncalculated risks in an attempt to sniff out even the smallest morsel of food.
But in this video, the mother’s attempt to find food is anything but a small morsel. She finds herself accompanied by two large and healthy walruses. With their blubber-filled bodies, they look particularly tasty and nutritious for the polar bear mother and her cub, but they’re several times larger than she is, and in her weakened state, she’d be no match for one if they lashed back out.
Male polar bears are known to attack walruses when their prey appears ill or weak since they wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight, and here we see the mother testing the walruses by sniffing them and touching their paws to see how they’ll respond. Unfortunately for her, they’re incredibly healthy and alert, and she backs off.
It looks like the mom and her cub will just need to keep searching for something to eat…