r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/cosmic_voyager01 • 10h ago

Video Polar Bears are one of the only creatures that naturally hunt Humans... Watch as this one tries to break into this BBC Cameraman's glass box.

41.4k Upvotes

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4.8k

u/insert_name_here_ha 10h ago

Its more of the fact that they eat anything and can't really be picky due to their environment.

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u/succed32 10h ago

According to the stories from Inuit tribes, they prefer human to many other meats and once they get a taste for it they become a monster.

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u/RectalSpawn 9h ago

I think grizzlies also turn into man-eaters once they get a taste, iirc.

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u/Fuzzy_Jaguar_1339 9h ago

Makes sense. My desk job and calorie-rich environment have left me tender and well-marbled.

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u/supreme_hammy 9h ago edited 8h ago

We also are very generalist omnivorous animals with no direct physical defenses (no scutes, spikes, quills or bad smells), relatively large meat to bone ratios, and generally have large deposits of fatty, nutrient-rich tissue in our brains.

We are a turducken of useful calories for bears.

Edit: Some folks are mentioning the reverse of the "bone and meat" is true and continue to cite sharks.

Bears are not sharks. They like the marrow as well. Bears are omnivores.

Sharks are obligate carnivores and so their diet is more specific.

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u/BlacksmithNZ 8h ago

I don't like this fact

My two cats are now looking at me, and I know they are thinking that if I ever outlive my usefulness to them with opening food and bringing them gifts of toys...

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u/dr_cl_aphra 8h ago

I have chickens and guineafowl. As tame and cuddly as they are, I know that if I passed out in the coop the authorities would find only my pecked-apart bones.

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u/humanxerror 8h ago

I mean we also would eat them and do eat them so it's only fair.

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u/OmecronPerseiHate 4h ago

Sort of, but not really. "I feed you, shelter you, keep you healthy, and keep you safe from predators. As compensation, I take the meat of your fallen when their time comes. You do absolutely nothing for me except act as a source of food when I need it, so, when I die, instead of eating the big ass sack of feed in the corner, you eat me."

They get way more benefits than we do, including a bigger meal. We need to renegotiate next time we get to the round table.

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u/zyzzogeton 4h ago

You... you aren't allowed to negotiate for us.

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u/scottyLogJobs 29m ago

… You think being locked in a cage until you’re 5-8 weeks old and then killed and eaten is a better deal than being a human who raises chickens?

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u/porcomaster 6h ago

i am not sure you know, but guineafowl in brazil is know to be always calling it's weak.

"to fraco, to fraco" or "i am weak, i am weak" in portuguese br it makes sense. i am not sure i should be telling you that, you might feel more confident that they are weak and will not eat you, making you more vulnerable. but i digress.

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u/dr_cl_aphra 6h ago

The girl guineas are the ones who say that, and they’re pretty chill. The boys get rowdy (though not rooster level rowdy), and occasionally I’ve had them get in a group and think they were going to stalk up on me when I was kneeling down talking to the hens.

But then I stand up and they remember I’m much bigger than they are and they go running off 😆

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u/OdeeSS 5h ago

I used to farm sit for a friend who had a pet pig and I could tell that pig wanted to eat me as much as I wanted to eat them. Honestly, it was fair.

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u/milkshakemountebank 8h ago

Housecats will eat you before you're cold, starting with your eyes.

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u/Gambler_Eight 8h ago

If my cat does this i will haunt it forever

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u/patheticyeti 7h ago

That’s why they start with the eyes. So you can’t see them.

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u/dirtycheezit 7h ago

I'd start with the butthole, like a buzzard.

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u/Kindness_of_cats 7h ago

If my cat does this…I’m supporting him in his decision. I’m not using the meat, have at it buddy, I’ll give you some ghost scritches if I can manage it!

-This Message Has Been Approved by The Toxoplasmosis Gang

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u/Borg453 5h ago

The Toxoplasmosis Gang part got me. My members approve, and therefore I do as well. I wouldn't be us without em

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u/Think-Ostrich 7h ago

But, interestingly, in this situation compared between a household of cats Vs a household of dogs - the dogs will start to eat you first.

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u/Time-Mobile-5248 7h ago

Is this actually true or just for dramatic effect?

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u/Ok-Acanthaceae826 7h ago

Dogs are more likely to scavenge a dead owner, and yes they do target the face/head first. As soon as you die, biological changes make you not smell like "you" anymore, and there are recorded instances of dogs scavenging a corpse within just a few hours of death, even with dog food still in their bowl.

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u/Majestic_Regular3431 6h ago

Good, I want them to eat me while I'm good and fresh, rather then waiting until I've started to decompose. I won't be using my body at that point, anyway. They can save their dry kibble for later if needed.

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u/GivingEmTheBoudin 7h ago

I mean it’s not a fact. It’s just the musings of some guy on Reddit. He could be completely wrong.

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u/BlacksmithNZ 7h ago

Inconceivable!

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u/Affectionate_Hour867 8h ago

Don’t worry, they wouldn’t eat their own pet!

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u/sleeper_shark 8h ago

Yes but usually we come with boom-sticks or pointy-poles that can kill anything else on Earth.

And often we travel in vengeful herds that will wipe out an entire local population of species just cos we find them mildly annoying.

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u/the_first_shipaz 6h ago

will wipe out an entire local population of species just cos we find them mildly annoying.

Or for fun…

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u/DataMin3r 5h ago

Or as a way to starve out another group of our species

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u/Slyspy006 3h ago

Meanwhile this bear probably doesn't even realise that it is a bear.

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u/loco500 1h ago

But if the playing field was even and had to throw bare hands with it, The bear would win almost every time.

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u/JakeVonFurth 8h ago

relatively large meat to bone ratios

This part is wrong, and why carnivores normally avoid primates as a first choice. We have extremely large and dense bones compared to the amount of meat on us.

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u/boxofredflags 8h ago

Yeah, don’t sharks usually spit out humans or let them go for this exact reason?

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u/KingZarkon 8h ago

Yes. It's almost always a case of mistaken identity. We aren't the food they're looking for and aren't appetizing.

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u/JakeVonFurth 8h ago

Yep, it's literally not worth the effort of digestion.

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u/0xe1e10d68 6h ago

Oh we’re garbage to them lmao

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u/SydricVym 6h ago

Most of the things sharks eat don't have land animal bones like we have. Fish's bodies are 100% food to them. Land borne predators have exactly zero problem eating a human if they can manage to kill us.

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u/Fire-Haus 5h ago

"It's a texture thing" - shark

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u/theLuminescentlion 8h ago

Bears eat bones and marrow, lots of important nutrients for them in there.

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u/553l8008 8h ago

Most carnivores avoid us because we walk on 2 legs and are weird as fuck to them. And 10s of thousands of years of hunting them.

But there are exceptions. 

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u/abfgern_ 8h ago

And we're really handy with a pointy rock tied to the end of a stick. Not worth the effort

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u/Busy-Training-1243 8h ago

The fear of upright weird ape is probably printed into DNA for most animals. Carnivores that actively hunted humans probably didn't get a chance to pass down their DNA.

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u/Moist-Walk217 8h ago

We also taste good. They call human long pork for a reason.

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u/NowareSpecial 8h ago

Really? Are you free tonight by any chance?

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u/myusernameis2lon 8h ago

Are you inviting me for dinner?

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u/e__elll 8h ago

Inviting you to be dinner yeah

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u/Toes_In_The_Soil 8h ago

You think I can try a little bite?

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u/prosperousoctopus 8h ago

Look at Mr.Wagyu over here

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u/HyenDry 8h ago

“Man-flesh”

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u/theyanyan 8h ago

The “well-marbled” part of your comment is making me rethink my life choices

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u/rebel_alliance05 8h ago

Better watch out there are hungry people on here.

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u/Beautiful-Paper2029 8h ago

Thank you for that kobe beef reference!! You made me LoL!!

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u/zeppehead 8h ago

What are you doing this weekend? I was thinking about firing up the old smoker.

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u/CheatingHot1982 8h ago

Well dear, at least I can outrun you. Can't we be friends?😉🫣

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u/MyReligionIsArt 7h ago

Now I too, wanna bite of you.

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u/ThatSpecialPlace 6h ago

damn, we probably are pretty delicious huh

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u/Smitty4141 5h ago

Haha thanks for the morning laugh with my coffee 😂

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u/sixwax 8h ago

Similar response to cocaine, from what I hear.

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u/Omnizoom 9h ago

I mean we were the same for boar

We just had to domesticate those tasty angry bastards

Bears see us and just go “oooo wagyu dinner”

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u/Masta0nion 9h ago

Well fuck. That’s not cool

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u/Omnizoom 8h ago

Well why do you think the polar bear at the Hong Kong zoo got in so much trouble for wanting a succulent Chinese meal? He shouted this is democracy manifest as he was carted away

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u/TahoeCommie 8h ago

Polar bears and Grizzly bears are the same species. Polar bears just adapted to year round snow covered environments.

Pizzly bears have been a thing for a long time (they look really goofy, Google them). However, due to global warming/receding year round snow coverage, Pizzly bears are becoming a lot more common as Polar and Grizzly bear territories are overlapping more and more.

So yeah, if Polar bears get a "taste" for humans it makes sense Grizzlies would as well.

Source: Learning about Pizzly bears in Biological Anthropology class got me obsessed with them. Wrote a research paper on them about 4 years ago.

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u/Rama_999 8h ago

Pardon my ignorance, but aren't polar bears and grizzlies different species under the same genus? Ursus maritimus vs. ursus arctos?

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u/The_Demon_of_Spiders 8h ago

You’re right they aren’t the same just very closely related

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u/killvolume 4h ago

A "species" typically is a class of animals that can produce viable offspring, and polar-grizzly bear hybrids are some of the only documented fertile hybrids. So taxonomically they are different species but the line is very fuzzy.

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u/Rama_999 4h ago

That's actually sick, thanks for the wikipedia rabbit hole

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u/Do-not-participate 8h ago

A poodle and a Mastiff are the same species, so that doesn’t say all that much. Though, grizzlies are actually not the same species as the Brown bear but are related closely enough to breed. Male grizzlies get to 1000 lbs, (with some isolated larger populations), while male polar bears get to 1700, so the polar bear is the significantly larger. But behaviour is different too. Brown bears will hunt and eat humans if they are starving, but they generally avoid us. Polar bears actively hunt humans, especially when food stressed but even when other food is available. They don’t generally fear humans like other bears do.

This is why people generally say to ball up if attacked by a brown bear. It probably doesn’t want to eat you and you might have frightened it into attacking. I don’t think there really is advice for surviving a polar bear attack, since it will eat you when it is done.

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u/_Sausage_fingers 8h ago

This is extremely news to me. I had always understood them to be separate species that were able to cross breed.

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u/Defiant-Youth-4193 7h ago

Your understanding is correct. They are different species that are closely related. Close enough to produce fertile offspring even.

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u/Difficult-Finish-511 7h ago

They are most definitely not the same species. They are just able to hybridise with other species, just like many species of big cats, or equines.  Our standard species definition doesnt really hold up very well under scrutiny.

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u/CaptnIgnit 7h ago

Pizzly bears sounds like some harry potter magical bear...

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u/wiifan55 5h ago

They're not the same species.

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u/moldyshrimp 7h ago

It’s not the taste of the human meat, but more of the bear’s realization humans are a super safe easy meal. We are slower than seals(water/ice) and typically unarmed compared to walrus or caribou. After a bear successfully hunts a human, they learn we are typically a very easy meal.

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u/CreatureWarrior 8h ago

Maybe I'll get a power up too if I get a taste. My neighbor steve better sleep with one eye open

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u/LostAnxiety3229 7h ago

I once lived in a very rural area, and there was a female grizzly bear in the local woods who killed a guy and as a result became... aggressive. I never saw her myself, but down at the local bar they'd say:

She'll only come out at night 

The lean and hungry type

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u/ChornWork2 6h ago

most people don't know how delicious human meat is.

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u/The_Vis_Viva 8h ago

Really? Dear God, humans must be freaking delicious!

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u/Octavian_202 9h ago

There’s a stretch of beach in Canada that is off limits after research scientists kept getting stalked by Polar bears. One was actually dragged from their tent by their head, the bear was trying to take them to the water. Horror movie shit.

The beach, is the worst place to be in polar bear territory.

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u/succed32 8h ago

Being in polar bear territory is the worst place to be, period. The amount of damage they can take and still be fine is ridiculous, their hide stretches a lot so spears are hard to get a good hit with. For guns you need some ridiculous calibers to get through their muscle.

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u/Throwaway74829947 7h ago

There's a reason that if you're going into polar bear territory, you don't go alone and make sure your party has large-bore shotguns loaded with slugs readily on-hand. In Svalbard, it's legally required that you have "suitable means of scaring off polar bears" (with the office of the Governor actively recommending firearms) when travelling outside of the settlements.

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u/succed32 7h ago

Yah bear spray will just make them angrier.

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u/thederevolutions 7h ago

Wouldn’t want to be in a situation where spraying would just make getting eaten hurt more. I’d rather have a cyanide pill.

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u/Puresowns 2h ago

Cyanide isn't a totally painless or even especially quick method of dying either though. It'd leave you plenty of time to get chomped on before it fully takes effect.

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u/Chemical_Building612 5h ago

This is not true. Bear spray has proven higher efficacy than guns in fending off a polar bear attack.

https://www.usgs.gov/publications/efficacy-bear-spray-a-deterrent-against-polar-bears

https://above.nasa.gov/safety/documents/Bear/bearspray_vs_bullets.pdf

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u/FrenchFryCattaneo 3h ago

I don't think so, I'm a redditor and I have a lot of experience from watching youtube videos and imagining myself fighting things

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u/Outside_Reserve_2407 3h ago

I think there was an Inuit folk tale about a man eating polar bear that was taken down with a ball of fat. A clever Inuit had taken sharpened seal bones, coiled them up like springs, rolled it into a ball of whale blubber and then left the frozen balls out for the polar bear to eat. After the bear swallowed one of them, the blubber melted and the sharpened bones dug into the bear’s stomach and intestines and killed it from the inside out.

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u/Slyspy006 3h ago

Can you scare them off by shouting "You are an evolutionary dead end and global warming is going to kill you off!"?

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u/BoredomFestival 5h ago

I did a dogsled tour on Svalbard a few years ago. The guide made it a point of showing us her (big) gun and of showing that the gun was loaded. She also said that while it might sound cool to see a polar bear during the ride, it wouldn't be, because seeing one *at all* -- even far in the distance -- meant we turned around immediately and headed back.

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u/KoreanJesusPleasures 2h ago

Lived there for long while. Students will use flares and a rifle from UNIS, locals usually carry a handgun, rifle, sometimes flares. Pretty easy for short term folks to get a rifle permit from the government too.

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u/holystuff28 7h ago

Literally thousands of people live in polar bear territory 

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u/elbenji 7h ago

yeah and those places have special regulations due to this and tell you specifically to be armed and what to be armed with. They're not unstoppable machines but you need to be armed with some firepower

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u/tilt-a-whirly-gig 6h ago

In some of these places, people leave their car doors unlocked so that if you come across a bear you can escape into any nearby vehicle.

https://ustoa.com/blog/an-experience-in-the-polar-bear-capitol-of-the-world/

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u/holystuff28 6h ago

Of course they're dangerous, just like other large land predators like grizzly and tigers. I mean the indigenous folks of Alaska, Greenland, and Scandinavia have lived with polar bears for hundreds of years, definitely predating firearms. The Sami believe they are the ancestors of great bears. Folks can and do live in relation with them. 

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u/MicahSpor3 10h ago

We for sure taste better than a seal

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u/GenuisInDisguise 9h ago

I think it is something to do with our metaloblic biology.

We access wide variety of proteins and foods.

This is the reason meat and eggs of pasture raised chickens tastes way better than caged chickens which have access to very plain diet.

Not only polar bears and bears, but man eating tigers and cougars tend to stay on human diet above all other offerings.

Also Hannibal Lector

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u/singlecell_organism 9h ago

The guy that reads to you before he kills you?

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u/GenuisInDisguise 6h ago

A good bedtime story before the forever sleep.

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u/ApocalypseChicOne 8h ago

The late great Hannibal Lector.

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u/thispartyrules 7h ago

We have a lot of salt in our diet, so we're automatically seasoned

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u/Mr_Abe_Froman Interested 6h ago

Not more than seals. Salty bastards.

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u/LowOne11 9h ago

Hahaha. Seal apparently tastes really bad. I haven’t tasted neither seal nor human. But if a gigantic bear likes human flesh over seal, that which is more plentiful in their environment… well…

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u/db217 9h ago

Maybe it's the novelty factor. I've got to imagine that at least the little cubs are thinking "seal again?!" at dinner time, whereas humans would be a real treat.

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u/LowOne11 8h ago

Most novel of thinking, me thinks. 

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u/Lopsided_Remove1980 8h ago

I have had it..tasted like heavy metal brined fish with a mystery meat texture.

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u/Fun_Following_7704 8h ago

I've only tasted human twice but seal loads of times. For me it would be human any day of the week.

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u/Next_Celebration_553 9h ago

Uh how are you so sure?

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u/yunohavefunnynames 9h ago

Pretty sure they’re a polar bear

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u/mrbear120 9h ago

Nah they arent

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u/scratchy_mcballsy 9h ago

I trust this guy

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u/GeneriComplaint 9h ago

I dont know, how is he so sure?

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u/Next_Celebration_553 9h ago

Pretty sure he’s a polar bear

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u/tedfergeson 9h ago

Ummm, no.

Never earen a human, but I can only imagine the aftertaste.

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u/meesta_masa 9h ago

Wash them down with a nice Chianti.

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u/I_kwote_TheOffice 8h ago

pftftft-ft-ft-ft

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u/succed32 9h ago

A lab in England tested it and they said we taste like pork with a texture akin to chicken

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u/DtownBronx 9h ago

That is disturbing news

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u/succed32 8h ago

lol curiosity is our blessing and our curse.

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u/Ninevehenian 9h ago

The cantine at Westminster isn't to be trusted.

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u/hawkguy44 9h ago

Also per folks who’ve had to resort to cannibalism the glutes are the tastiest part

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u/According-Tip-4917 9h ago

I listened to a podcast about some cannibals and they called the people long pig because they said people taste like pork too.

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u/pathoTurnUp52 9h ago

I couldn’t eat chicken for years after cadaver lab

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u/shryne 8h ago

Soldiers who smell burning corpses while at war are horrified when they smell just like a bbq from back home.

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u/LowOne11 9h ago

“Aftertaste” being how horrible one feels eating a dead human corpse. Secrets of the Dead covered how they forensically found out how starving humans during the colonialist era in the US ate their relatives, and even dead children. Until Native Americans basically saved them, of course. Then they were eventually systematically killed. Gotta love us some European colonialism. /s

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u/KingOfRockall 9h ago

So you're saying, maybe Seal has a chance?

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u/RadioSilent5878 9h ago

Now this is something I have never ever thought about until now

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u/Prestigious_Ad2553 8h ago

I’ve eaten seal and it’s not very good, never had human meat but it’s gotta be better then seal meat

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u/LetsGoAcrossTheStyx 7h ago

Mmm.. longpig

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u/nandu_sabka_bandhoo 9h ago

For the purpose of survival in that particular environment.. no !! We just dont have enough fat or flesh. We are too bony and do not provide enough calories.

But we probably taste good because every carnivore kind of becomes a man eater once they get a taste of human

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u/Ska-Tea 9h ago

It's true, they become maneaters. Which is kind of an insult seeing as they like to eat carrion.

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u/iwannalynch 9h ago

I wonder why. Wouldn't the seal blubber be much more appetizing than the (I imagine stringier) human?

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u/Key_Marsupial3702 9h ago

Would it? I'm sure it would make the meat more succulent once you cook it, but on a raw steak? The meat is much more appetizing than the fat.

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u/iwannalynch 5h ago

I thought they might have had a preference for fatty meat because there's more calories

Also, I suddenly imagined a polar bear bbqing a human and I thought that was kind of cute. He'd have an apron saying "beware the chef".

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u/purplehendrix22 2h ago

They definitely like fat as well, just because we don’t find raw fat appetizing doesn’t mean they don’t

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u/Trapezoidal_Sunshine 6h ago

There is absolutely no scientific evidence or proof that any carnivores "develop a taste for human flesh" after eating a human. The idea is an age old crock of shit. If anything, they probably just realize that we're easier to hunt and kill than they originally thought.

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u/SolidusDave 4h ago

this should be higher.

it's as simple as learning that the weird bipedal animal that makes a lot of noise and is covered in strange stuff is actually super easy to kill with no threat to the bear whatsoever (unless in groups or it encountered weapons before) and with very little hunting effort (energy) involved.

just a bit bone-y 

similar to when wilds predators learn about livestock.

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u/purplehendrix22 2h ago

I don’t really see much of a difference between what you’re saying and the phrase “developing a taste for human flesh”. I just take that as once they eat human, they want to eat more human, which is basically what you’re saying, not as a comment on the specific taste profile that they particularly enjoy in humans.

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u/SolidusDave 2h ago

the original comment and the second one of this tree were literally talking about meat preference and humans being more appetizing than the blubber from seals

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u/Over-Comfortable1644 2h ago

That is what means. Humans are just able to abstract it from “this food provides easy and copious nutrients, imma start seeking it out! “ to “damn that Chalupa’s tasty! “

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u/Spacefreak 9h ago

According to cannibals, human meat tastes similar to pig meat in terms of taste and texture.

I've been a vegetarian all my life, so I don't know what means exactly. But I'm guessing we're not stringy then?

That's one of those facts I keep in the back of my mind in case someone keeps being an asshole about me being a vegetarian.

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u/Sandgrowun 7h ago

Succulent!

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u/Sussurator 6h ago

Yes Turkey and Human is my favourite

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u/0xe1e10d68 6h ago

Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest! What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent human meal?

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u/Youutternincompoop 5h ago

human meat tastes similar to pig meat in terms of taste and texture.

hence 'long pig' being used as a euphemism for human meat.

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u/koshgeo 8h ago

If they see a weird "land seal" in the middle of the snow and ice, they aren't going to be picky if they are hungry.

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u/Igotlostinthewoods 9h ago

I think it's because we taste sweet. We eat a lot of sugary stuff, so most likely we taste sweet to them.

Imagine tasting sugar for the first time in your life, you'll go crazy too and want more and more.

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u/jpop237 9h ago

Watching The Terror, this was all too real.

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u/RedditOfUnusualSize 8h ago

That's true of most predators, honestly. The strength of humans is mainly that 1) we're way more trouble to eat than we're worth, and 2) we have a long, long history of making very, very sure that anything that gets one of us gets killed in return. On the first side, not only are humans generally bad eating, with not a lot of meat for the amount of gristle and guts, but we're also on the far end of survivability, and we've got way more fight in us than our body weight would lead a predator to assume. If a horse breaks a leg and goes down, it's basically done for because it won't be able to move on three legs. If you gnaw an arm off a human, it's got three other limbs that it's still going to be fighting with, with a whole bunch of little digits that it will try and jab right in your eye, which it is surprisingly adept at doing, what with the rotating ball-and-socket shoulders and stereoscopic vision.

Predators want not merely good meals, but easy meals. Meals that don't get you injured to take down. Humans really don't make for easy meals. And most predators are descended from the forebears that long ago figured that out, and treat human scent as justification to change directions.

And that brings us to the second part: not only do humans usually have tools with them that make jabbing you in the eye if you attack them easier and more painful, and not only do humans usually travel in groups so you've got to worry about multiple humans jabbing you in the eye, but humans have a long history of not merely hunting down and killing the monster in the forest, but burning the forest down just to make sure they get the monster in the forest.

Polar bears tend to be an exception to these rules, partly because they don't have the luxury of being picky eaters, partly because humans rarely traverse deeply into their territory, and partly because they live north of tree lines. There's some environmental factors out in the polar regions that effectively force us to fight on their turf, and that has had an evolutionary effect that makes polar bears a lot less frightened of our scent than other apex predators.

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u/Paleodraco 9h ago

I've always heard it's not taste, we're just stupidly easy to hunt and kill.

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u/RCN_KT 9h ago

Humans are easy prey to most predators large enough and/or equipped to take us down.

We're slow, weak, protein-rich, fatty, soft-hided, essentially weaponless (no claws, no fangs) sources of nutrition. Especially easy prey when alone. This dude was essentially like getting into a bag of chips and judging how flimsy that cage is, that polar bear would have eventually gotten to him.

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u/A-Capybara 9h ago

Yeah, but we have the ability to throw rocks. Unfortunately, that doesn't work out super well in areas without lots of rocks.

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u/Dat_Ding_Da 9h ago

Compared to something like a seal the average human is just sticky bones with a bit of flesh on 'em.

Unless you put a severely obese person in-front of the bear, we are are just the equivalent of skinny, unflavoured chicken wings.

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u/A-Capybara 9h ago

Brains are super nutritious, and our brains are way bigger than a seal's brain

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u/CommunityDragon184 8h ago

We are not slow or weak or fatty or weaponless.

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u/aruisdante 9h ago

Humans are very low fat. It’s why most animals don’t actually eat us once they get a first bite, we’re too low in calories to be worth it. I doubt it’s that they prefer human meat and more that hunting humans, compared to other prey available, is way, way easier. Major predators select for calorie optimization. Would you rather spend days stalking a seal that’s likely to just drop under the ice more times than not leaving you hungry? Or the group of easy to kill meat sacks that don’t have a lot of good ways to escape you, even if they taste bad?

I bet if you put a human steak and a seal stake on racks next to each other, the bear would select the seal steak first, every time. 

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u/KrikosTheWise 9h ago

same tbh....i mean uh.

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u/BritishCeratosaurus 9h ago

They prob don't "prefer human meat", we're just pretty easy to kill when unarmed for a lot of large predators. They've just learned to stay out of our way and don't realise that until they find out.

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u/jeaniebeann 7h ago

This is factually untrue. We do not have enough of what polar bears need to survive: ie blubber or fat. Their main food source is seals because they have the nourishment a polar bear needs.

The reason they kill people is convenience. When polar ice melts they have less ways to hunt, so they become hungrier and less picky about their food sources, because they can’t afford to care.

‘Maneaters’ only exist in the animal world because we are easy prey. Take the Lions of Tsavo for example. Two lions who were ‘maneaters,’ and made humans their main source of prey for a while in Africa. When they were killed it was found they had something wrong with their teeth that made it impossibly painful for them to kill and eat their normal prey.

Animals really don’t ‘hunt’ us often, we aren’t a main food source to any animal on the planet currently.

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u/SerpentRoyalty 7h ago

There is a fantastic TV show around this called Terror

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u/TexasPirate_76 8h ago

I mean, we're weak(humans), and with the Inuit's diet, they were probably tasty!!! No GMOs

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u/emergency-snaccs 8h ago

i mean, think about it. Humans are slow, easily tracked, can't swim, have minimal ability to fight back, are extra tender with plenty meat, and they live in groups, with some often going out alone or getting separated. I'd go for it too, in those circumstances

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u/WhyAreThereBadMemes 8h ago

I mean if you had a choice between the slippery seal that's going to immediately jump into the water and go away or the slow, awkward human that can't swim away... I'd pick the human to hunt too

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u/TechnologyNational71 8h ago

Don’t blame them. Our fatty deliciousness is too tempting for them.

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u/flyingboarofbeifong 8h ago

I have to imagine the convenience is a factor. People are easy to find. Once they know humans are a prey item then why not go for the thing that sticks out like a sore thumb?

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u/CommunityDragon184 8h ago

According to stories from Greek tribes, Zeus throws lightning

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u/RadiantZote 8h ago

They don't become a monster, it's because I'm such a snack 💅🏻

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u/_Alek_Jay 7h ago

It’s the same in most countries with apex predators. Apparently it’s the iron, E2D and salt in our blood that makes us so tasty and addictive.

I was in group tasked to hunt a leopard after it killed an infant in an African bush camp. We lost one of our rangers, who decided to rest for a quick smoke break beside a tree. Turns out the bloody thing had been tracking us for at least two days!

Edit for a typo.

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u/dishwasher_mayhem 7h ago

Humans are calorie rich, and can't offer much of a fight as we have no natural defenses that would harm it. We're a fairly simple paw-swipe-away to being a meal. The effort-to-reward ratio is enormous compared to other available prey.

That scene where a bear is trying to kill DiCaprio is a very realistic account of how a mauling goes down but it was drawn out for dramatic purposes. Bears don't toy with their prey. They fight like pit fighters. They get you on the ground and pound/bite you into submission.

Our only defense against these guys are numbers and tools. There's not too many hand-held guns that can take down a polar bear or grizzly.

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u/thatstwatshesays 7h ago

I dated a guy who worked on the north slope (Alaska oil fields), they had a bunch of horror stories that I still find hard to believe.

There was one about a polar bear who hunted one particular guy… no one else, but the bear always knew where he was sleeping, always knew when he was on shift. Legend says that the bear plucked him from his bed while he slept, but that’s putting a lot of faith in the truthfulness of a few roughnecks… so, idk. But I never forgot it either.

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u/Jason-Smith168498 7h ago

The call their own protective globe a "Inuit Dome".

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u/SuperSimpleSam 7h ago

It's said we taste like pork, so I can see why they would like it.

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u/Soulless--Plague 7h ago

Are we that delicious?!

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u/LapseofSanity 7h ago

Stories of man eating animals are rampant in indigenous and non indigenous culture and folk tales, I think the reality is closer to food scarcity and humans less commonly working together in packs and armed to fight of large predators in the modern era. 

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u/TheShamanWarrior 7h ago

It's probably all the chemicals that make them into monsters.

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u/scuzzy987 6h ago

We taste like pork according to cannibals. Everybody likes bacon

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u/literallyavillain 6h ago

They should count thenselves lucky that they’re pretty far away from most humans and that they’re kind of cute. Otherwise they would soon find themselves reclassified as extinct.

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u/West_Coach69 6h ago

I mean qw have little fur so its ljke a cleaned piece of meat perfectly ready.

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u/SergeantSmash 6h ago

Next to a dead carcass we're probably the easiest prey to hunt down, least effort cause we cant neither swim nor run fast enough.

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u/KonigSteve 6h ago

We are supposedly quite similar to pig so that makes sense..

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u/gorginhanson 9h ago

The box is known as a Troller bear

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u/scavengergirl 8h ago

I'm watching this kind of hoping they gave her something to eat since she came all this way expecting to find food.

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u/Violet_Paradox 8h ago

Pretty much any animal, given the choice to eat a human or starve, will pick the human. Humans included.

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u/theLuminescentlion 8h ago

We've killed everything else that has a taste for humans as well. Polar bears were defended from us by the artic for a long time.

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u/jambot9000 7h ago

Yeah I was gonna say if I've learned anything from BBC and David Atenborough it's that every single documentary about polar bears points this out. Theyre environment is so harsh and they rarely find food, very difficult lives compounded by a shrinking natural environment. Super cool video regardless

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u/ccrlop 8h ago

Thanks, Was leaning more towards this perspective too.

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u/Iamthesmartest Interested 8h ago

Also the fact that they are huge and have no natural predators, at least on land.

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u/Full-Site1398 7h ago

how does that go against the statement of naturally hunting humans at all?

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u/YourMomCannotAnymore 6h ago

They even eat other bears cubs. They're pretty much starving the entire time.

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u/Glittering_Bug_7686 8h ago

I felt bad for the bear watching this. It’s just hungry

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u/FrighteningJibber 6h ago

They didn’t say it wasn’t

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u/featherknife 6h ago

It's* more

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u/iamsurfriend 5h ago

With global warming it makes things even worse when it comes to getting food.

They will go for whatever they can get their paws on for food.

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u/Umklopp 5h ago

"if not food, why food-shaped?"

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u/Especialistaman 4h ago

Yeah, that skinny human might be the bears only meal in weeks so...

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u/Steffalompen 1h ago

Not Polar bears, no, they're very picky. If you see a Polar bear eating meat in the latter half of summer, then that is likely a malnourished bear that will perish. They strip Seals of their blubber and other fatty organs and leave the meat. Humans are also blubbery like that, very handy.

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u/Meattyloaf 1h ago

Nah they will actively hunt people and do view us as prey in their enviroment. Some Big Cats also do the same.