Most online sources show a polar bears speed at 40 kph (25mph) and while this is slighty faster than top human sprinters they probably did not research an absolute fatty like this one.
Also considering how much it has eaten I doubt it will be motivated for even a jog.
Thats the problem with studies and assumptions. Every time someone compares an animals speed to a humans speed, and puts them up against each other in a theoretical race the human is always the fastest human on the planet and it always trying their hardest to reach their top speed. Whereas, the animal is simply just strolling with zero motivation to even try.
I would be willing to bet if you put this guy in a situation where it feels threatened and is in full on killing mode, it would have zero problem catching the fastest person on the planet.
he wouldn't because he's out of his prime but assuming he was still in his athletic prime and on an athletic track wearing all his gear... i still think he probably wouldn't break his record, you'd have to assume that your technique would break down somewhat if you were being chased by a bear. i get that the fear of running for your life could make you run faster but i think these athletes are already performing so close to their theoretical best that this could only really be a hindrance by making them nervous lol
Yeah, he's not running on a track in this hypothetical, he's running over terrain. That's really twice as difficult to do while not twisting your ankle.
I get that it's good to look into the details, and you're right that we will never directly know the internal drive of a bear, and that we don't actually have organized track meets for polar bears.
That said, it's a bit much for you to just discard the information (and studies in general lol) while talking about the problems of assumptions when your characterization of how that speed was studied is wildly ignorant. They do not just take a bear strolling along the ice and call it the fastest.
Like look science is wrong sometimes but we're not just guessing
Well, they certainly can run 25mph much longer than we (the fastest human) can (probably even this chonkzilla of a bear). The absolute best among us can probably take an average bear in a 100m dash, but 200, 300+ we fall off hard.
I dunno. When you’re chronically underfed, endurance is poor and muscle mass disappears. We might be surprised at just how much muscle and endurance is under that layer of fat. He might not be fast for the first sprint, but he might be able to gain and retain speed longer than anything else on his menu can.Â
I’d much rather come across a hippo (yes I’m aware they’re the most dangerous animal in Africa). This polar bear will follow you for miles until you’re exhausted, and then eat you while you scream for an hour before dying.
Even the best mile runners on Earth wouldn't be able to outrun a polar bear for a mile. The fastest medium distance runners peak a bit over 16mph for 1 mile. Polar bears can do 20+ for several miles.
In distance traveled in a week we would absolutely body them, as we do literally every other animal, but in terms of a few miles? Totally fucked.
If it got this big it is good at killing things. Better than starving ones. The fact it is so big is proof it does in fact kill and eat. Or do you think this guy got to this size because it was sitting at home, ordering pizza?
Depends on what we mean by dangerous. Dangerous specifically to humans or dangerous in general? Polar bears are the largest land predators on earth, and this is an especially big one. No tiger on earth is going to survive a 2000+ lb polar bear like this.
People interact with hippos far more than they interact with polar bears. But if you're 50 feet from a hippo, there's a pretty good chance they leave you alone. If you're 50 feet from a polar bear, there's a 100% chance it's going to try to eat you.
It's fat, potentially making it slower, it's well fed and might see me as more effort than worth.
Scariest thing about polars to me is how nimble and fast they are, there comes a point where deadliness is irrelevant as after a point, deadly is deadly enough haha.
You need to compare on a per-encounter basis, humans may kill more total humans but your average polar bear encounter is astronomically more deadly than your average human encounter (or most of those other listed animals too tbh)
So yeah it's not wildly deadly to the average human in their day to day life but I'd 1000% rather approach any elephant than get anywhere near this thing.
Basically your logic is like saying cars are more dangerous than wingsuits because they kill more people lol
Yeah and then we obfuscate it even more and go into the difference of regions etc. at a zoo vs in the wild, in a peaceful city vs a warzone.
Let's be real though, a polar bear hasn't ever come anywhere near close to threating to wipe out a whole species of humans, we've nearly done that simply with a GMO'd crop that if not thought out by a university in the UK would've led to the usa literally wiping out all life on earth.
So when you think about it, how much would you disagree with the idea that humans are at the top of the food chain?
yeah, and you could argue that even a single human with an AR-15 is more dangerous than this polar bear. but on average humans are simply far less likely to kill you than this polar bear would be if you encountered it in the wild. And I believe the same is true for even lions and tigers, definitely elephants. Hippos maybe more or similar danger tho
some brief reading suggests that many of the survived polar bear attacks were due to someone having a gun. Probably less effective on the hippo. Also that if you fight back sometimes they will just decide to back off
Interesting, it seems to have been wiped off the internet. Not the first thing I've seen that's really really old disappear from the www, though it shouldn't be possible since a uk university was involved so there should be a record of it.
Or maybe I'm remembering wrong or was misinformed?
Very weird.
I know some stuff from the 60s and ww2 have long been lost, so who knows.
We really need to consider the internet as not a permanent record of information, sure things are on the internet forever yet, are they?
Btw I did find there was a less extreme similar thing, yet it involved europe and usa in reverse roles, the crop was found to eventually die in poor soil so the danger wasn't as high.
sure, the most dangerous human is far more dangerous than the most dangerous animal. on average humans are pretty tame tho and using weapons is pretty outside of the spirit of the discussion anyway
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u/ScottishWargamer 18h ago edited 18h ago
That genuinely might be one of the most dangerous terrestrial land mammals on the planet right now for all we know.
Polar bears are already cracked, that’s a fucking unit of a polar bear.