If I need supplemental water, I just walk over to a tap and turn it on. The animals that need to deal with water in frozen Alaska are eating neither peaches nor carrots. They’re eating leaves, grasses and other animals.
Don’t polar bears somehow get a lot of their water from the animals they eat?
I recall reading that they didn’t, but couldn’t find a cite. Do you have one? In my own experience, I’ve never seen a moose forage that way; they will strip the bark from trees and destroy any shrubs they can find.
From a National Geographic article:
Also here:
Even in arctic conditions, couldn’t they just lick the surface of a frozen steam or chunk of pack ice, confident that their tongue’s heat will melt the surface of the ice thus providing them with (some) liquid water ?
Well, color me un-ignoranced. The only place I ever saw moose in winter was in our yard and other areas of Anchorage, where there is plenty of above-snow browse (or at least much more than in the Arctic). Even so, they get very gaunt and irritable by winter’s end.
Please read post’s 11 & 12 so you can see I was not responding to the OP but to a different post.
Thank you for pointing out my grievous mistake especially as it is something you never do nor permitted on the SDMB.
OP only, all the time, every time. :rolleyes:
OP only, all the time, every time. :rolleyes:
OP only, all the time, every time. :rolleyes:
OP only, all the time, every time. :rolleyes:
Should I report myself?
Not sure I am going to comply… 
I do, 99% of the time, read the whole thread if it is less than 150 posts before I make my pronouncements, wrong as they might be. I have tried to do due diligence.
How do I join your group who has such a high level of standing in spite of not doing due diligence? <VEG>
Packed snow is much denser. Typically, snow on the ground is packed.
Anyway, is there a limit to how much snow you can eat? Other than that it costs calories to melt it? I am very dubious of the claim you can’t eat enough snow to hydrate.
The reason they tell you not to eat snow is that snow is frozen, and it will cool you off, and in a survival situation that’s the one thing you don’t want to do. If your core temperature drops you’re in big trouble. However, animals adapted for cold conditions have physiological methods of keeping themselves warm that tropical animals like humans don’t have. Arctic animals can just turn up their metabolism to keep themselves warm, whereas humans would have to exercise or shiver to turn calories into heat. Humans also have to worry about overheating, since if you sweat you soak your clothes which ruins their insulation. If arctic animals have enough food they don’t have to worry about hypothermia. But of course that’s the big problem in the winter. When an herbivore like a moose dies of starvation it almost always has a full stomach. They can always find something to eat, but the stuff they eat doesn’t have enough calories to keep them from starving.
So it’s a combination of factors. Most animals don’t need as much water has humans. Most animals get a lot of water from their food and don’t need much supplementary water. Arctic animals can eat snow because if they have enough calories they don’t have to worry about hypothermia. And of course lots of animals sleep through the winter and don’t consume food or water.
Moderator Note
GusNSpot, let’s avoid personal comments about other posters in GQ. No warning issued, but please stay on track.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
OK.