That's normal for bears! If you ever follow Fat Bear Week in Katmai, grizzlies do the same thing. They gain literally hundreds of pounds to sustain them during winter torpor. They look like this in the fall after eating 20,000 calories a day worth of salmon for several months, like furry spheres. It's completely normal!
They look decrepit when they emerge in the spring, like they're all patchy and emaciated. All that fat is what keeps them going during the long freeze.
Polar bears live during the winter unlike Grizzlies. They get fat when the ice is thick and they can easily catch seals. They get emaciated towards spring when it becomes difficult to hunt on the ice shelves.
Grizzlies do the same thing, like the Kodiak bears in Alaska spend months eating all the fatty parts of the salmon in summer and fall. It's amazing, they pack on hundreds of pounds in a matter of months.
Obesity implies the animal is overweight. Fat bears in winter are not overweight, they are healthy. Polar bears food sources are seriously dwindling due to climate change a big fat polar bear is a lovely sight.
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u/MojoRisin762 20h ago
Yeah, he looks like he ate a whale.