# Could polar bears survive in Antarctica? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2020, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411 "2020-02-23T22:44:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/41 "2020-02-25T04:08:48Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I would be concerned that the sense of direction might be haywire down there, with the sun different, and magnetism all wrong. Initially, bears are probably going to be relying primarily on their sense of smell to find food and open water. But there’s no reason to think the magnetic field would cause disorientation (if bears even have a magnetic sense), since in both the Arctic and Antarctic the main areas of sea are mostly to the north of the land. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/42 "2020-02-25T04:55:25Z")
In the Werner Herzog film there is footage of a poor penguin losing it for some reason, and, instead of following the rest of the flock, running off inland alone to certain death. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/43 "2020-02-25T05:04:03Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > In the Werner Herzog film there is footage of a poor penguin losing it for some reason, and, instead of following the rest of the flock, running off inland alone to certain death. Yes. _One_ penguin, while the rest of the flock oriented successfully. Occasionally an animal’s navigation system goes haywire, and it gets lost, but for 99.99% of individuals it works fine. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/44 "2020-02-25T06:58:06Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > [The extinction of The Great Auk | John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove](https://johnjames.audubon.org/extinction-great-auk) > _The Little Ice Age may have reduced the population of the Great Auk by exposing more of their breeding islands to predation by Polar Bears,…_ > > So altho no doubt humans are to blame for this species, yes Polar bears did eat Penguins. Yes, but the Little Ice Age kicked in in the 1300s, and there were still Auks around even in polar bear-inhabited areas. So they were dealing. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/45 "2020-02-25T08:25:39Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > It depends on how much switching they can do to seals and other marine mammals. As I said, the most vulnerable species would be Emperors. There are some colonies in parts of Antarctica not inhabited by Adelies or other penguins. Unless bears were able to survive on seals when the Emperors were at sea, those colonies might survive. Smaller species of penguins might be able to adapt. After all, there are enormous numbers of ground-nesting birds with vulnerable young that are able to breed and survive in the Arctic despite the presence of Polar Bears and Arctic Foxes. But those co-evolved. Penguins didn’t. I think that would make quite a difference. The whole “not being flightless” also might help at least the adults survive to breed another day. I’m still in two minds on the seals and cetaceans. On the one hand, physically they do seem like close analogues but I don’t know if there are good Antarctic equivalents for the most common Arctic prey seals behaviourally -The Ross seal is about equivalent to the ringed seal, but it’s much less prevalent in its area than the latter in its own. I guess the crabeater would be most analogous to the Bearded, but it has a different diet so behaviour will be different. The Weddell might also fit, but it seems more aggressive than the bearded. I think leopard seals have no Arctic equivalent. Or better said, I think their Arctic equivalent _is_ the polar bear. Suffice to say, I think elephant seals don’t have much to fear. Nor do orcas. I don’t know if any other _small_ Southern whales have the same behaviours as belugas and narwhals. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/46 "2020-02-25T12:51:35Z")
The winter land season of the emperor penguin would be a great help for the bears as that would give them a food source at the harshest time of they year. The warming of the continent would be also to their help. However the that penguin does not reproduce at a high level and things are very fragile (drop an egg on the ground and it’s dead), such a thing could quickly collapse the number of emperors into extinction. However there is a chance, though remote, that the penguins could cause harm to the bear on occasion either fighting back if attacked or standing off the bear as a group (as they do to other birds), they are actually quite powerful and not afraid to use their beak at a spear. The main damage would depend on infection setting in, disease unfamiliar to the bears due to the new location. On such a small starting population of bears, it is possible, though a long shot that the bears may die out. But outside that remote possibility, the bears have it made till the emperors run out, then they have to have their shit together. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/47 "2020-02-25T12:54:24Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > My gut feel is that the Antarctic seals and fish are not the same as the Arctic seals and fish, and the behavioural differences will catch the bears out and they won’t adapt in time. I suspect that one would go the other way; as Antarctic seals have evolved without any land predators, they’d often be sitting ducks. Weddell seals, for example, just leave their pups out in the open on the ice by their airholes, rather than making dens like Arctic seals do. They also spend a lot longer on the ice before entering the water, because in the Antarctic ice is the safe place, water is where the danger is, while in the Arctic the ice is a dangerous place for a seal pup. It seems likely to me that polar bears will adapt much faster to catching sealy snacks that just sit there and look at them wondering what the big fuzzy thing is than it would for seals to evolve defences. Interestingly, and this is probably irrelevant for polar bears, but in snow leopards, cubs have only been recorded as being born in May or a little into June- even multi-generation captive bred ones in Australia. I’ve no idea what the mechanism is, it’s possibly not even been studied, it just came up when the place I worked at imported a snow leopard from Australia to the UK, but in some animals there does appear to be a breeding time that’s independent of seasonal cues. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/48 "2020-02-25T13:33:48Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > I suspect that one would go the other way; as Antarctic seals have evolved without any land predators, they’d often be sitting ducks. But would polar bears recognize ducks as food? 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/49 "2020-02-25T13:58:29Z")
Don’t be silly. As the old joke goes, polar bears don’t eat penguins because they [can’t get the wrappers off](http://www.varthis.com/30-days-of-biscuit-bars-day-1/). ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/50 "2020-02-25T14:29:11Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > [Arctic penguins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk) survived until very recent times (1800s). People killed them off, not polar bears. I guess that if it looks like a penguin and squawks (maybe) like a penguin it might be mistaken for one, but Great Auks were not penguins. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/51 "2020-02-25T14:30:47Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > I suspect that one would go the other way; as Antarctic seals have evolved without any land predators, they’d often be sitting ducks. Good point. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/52 "2020-02-25T17:36:47Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Yes, but the Little Ice Age kicked in in the 1300s, and there were still Auks around even in polar bear-inhabited areas. So they were dealing. I didnt say they weren’t. I just was saying that yes, the Great Auk was prey to the Polar bear. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/53 "2020-02-25T17:43:47Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I guess that if it looks like a penguin and squawks (maybe) like a penguin it might be mistaken for one, but Great Auks were not penguins. One name for the Great Auk was very similar to “penguin” and it is how the penguin got it’s name. The \*Genus \*name is \*Pinguinus \* .So, the Great Auks were penguins before we found Antarctic penguins. But yes, they are not that closely related however they are both in the _Aequorlitornithes_ clade. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/54 "2020-02-25T17:53:53Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I guess that if it looks like a penguin and squawks (maybe) like a penguin it might be mistaken for one, but Great Auks were not penguins. Actually, they were. At least, they were the original “penguin.” The name penguin was first applied to the Great Auk. When the similar flightless birds of the Southern Hemisphere were discovered, they were also called penguins because of their likeness to the Great Auk, even though not closely related. ---
**Author:** ![wei\_ji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wei\_ji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wei_ji)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/55 "2020-02-25T18:57:44Z")
Very interesting thread and discussion. Now I want to know if the overlap of familiar food sources, general weather, and other environmental factors, would allow a group of old school Inuit dropped into the Antarctic environment to survive, and, given any significant differences, whether their capacity for adaptation would allow them to survive long enough to establish themselves in the Antarctic environment as successfully as in the Arctic. A family member was a biologist, and was fascinated in his final year of life over what was the source of Vitamin C for Inuits, reading extensively and researching this subject. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/56 "2020-02-25T19:30:22Z")
> [@wei\_ji](#): > > Very interesting thread and discussion. > > Now I want to know if the overlap of familiar food sources, general weather, and other environmental factors, would allow a group of old school Inuit dropped into the Antarctic environment to survive, and, given any significant differences, whether their capacity for adaptation would allow them to survive long enough to establish themselves in the Antarctic environment as successfully as in the Arctic. The men of the [Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition) weren’t Inuit but managed to survive three years in Antarctica. Admittedly, it was pretty grim. But in terms of survival “three years” seems a decent test case for long-term, permanent habitation. So… maybe old-school Inuit would have done better if they were colonizing, as opposed to members of a non-Inuit exploration group who some months into the project where more concerned with surviving long enough to be rescued than setting up a permanent habitation. Even so… food was always a concern for the ITAE, and at one point there was concern due to a lack of penguins coming ashore. They also for quite awhile had stored provisions to work with. Antarctica, due to its isolation from other land masses, has far less drift wood to work with. There are no walrus or narwhal in the south, so no source of ivory. No polar bears or wapiti to provide hide/furs so it would be strictly sealskin all the way, and maybe they could do something with penguin hide/feathers but I don’t think anyone has tried that before. There are NO, as opposed to few, plants edible to human beings. Southern Inuit would have a diet even more meat-focused than their brethren up north. Interesting question. It is more harsh, more unforgiving, and with fewer resources than the northern polar land regions. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/57 "2020-02-26T18:53:29Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > […] > Antarctica’s around 800 km away from South America, in case those are the “islands near Antarctica” you were thinking of. I doubt they could swim all that way, though maybe they could hitch a ride partway on some icebergs. (I really have no idea—do icebergs generally float in that direction, and if so, how long would that take? A polar bear can go only a few months without food.) Antarctica is surrounded by the circumpolar current, it flows around the continent clockwise as seen from above. This current has prevented the arrival of bears from South America (there are several species there) so far, in fact no animals have made the trip and survived. Of course, the cold winters do play a role: if any animal ever arrived, it froze to death the very next winter. But rodents survive the Siberian winters, so it seems plausible no one has ever arrived, not even on flotsam or natural rafts. I doubt polar bears could make it in the other direction. An idea I have been thinking about for some time is to imagine the situation from the other side: what did the animals do that lived in Antarctica before it froze when it started getting colder and colder, which, it seems, was not so long ago: much later than the dinosaur extinction event. I am afraid not a single species was able to leave, except some birds or bats. And even many birds are known for not crossing open water as the Wallace Line shows. Some day I will elaborate this idea and write or draw a comic about it. I just have to overcome my laziness ☹ ---
**Author:** ![EmbarrassingDad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/embarrassingdad/32/5441_2.png) [@EmbarrassingDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmbarrassingDad)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/58 "2020-02-27T02:50:28Z")
Thank you all. I love this board. Consider this scenario, it’s been touched on a little… As the bears move in to the Emperor colony, the penguins aren’t stupid. They start moving away, abandoning their eggs. The bears don’t care about the adults anyway. They want the rich, fatty eggs. As the bears move forward through the months they transition from eggs to hatchlings and chicks. What is the breeding lifespan of an Emperor Penquin? I could see the bears wiping out the Emperors in less than a decade. ---
**Author:** ![EmbarrassingDad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/embarrassingdad/32/5441_2.png) [@EmbarrassingDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmbarrassingDad)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/59 "2020-02-27T03:07:39Z")
I missed the timeframe to edit, but to clarify, the penguins don’t have to abandon their eggs mass exodus, the bears can just swat them to the side for their eggs and young. ---
**Author:** ![EmbarrassingDad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/embarrassingdad/32/5441_2.png) [@EmbarrassingDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmbarrassingDad)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411/60 "2020-02-27T03:15:24Z")
One more… If the penguins have no fear of the bears, the bears take refuge _inside_ the penguin colony, stealing their own defense and/or sharing warmth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-polar-bears-survive-in-antarctica/848411.md?page=4)