Survival on Antarctica?

Two questions about survival on Antarctica -

Could Eskimos survive on Antarctica?
Could a polar bear survive on Antarctica (after all the penguins were eaten)?

No responses? The Arctic Circle was populated because of nearby land masses. Antarctica is separated from South America by a violent sea and is even further from Africa and Australia. So it seems reasonable to speculate that Antarctica is habitable even though not populated.

Also is there enough prey to support polar bears? Although if polar bears were relocated to Antarctica the penguin population would probably be exterminated.

What about that long peninsula of Antartica?

I don’t think I can give you a fact based answer that befits GQ, however I can take a stab at it.

I’ve spent two years living in Canada’s arctic. I’ve also read a little bit about the continent of Antarctica. It doesn’t sound too promising for your hypothesis.

If I’m to believe Wiki, about 98% of the continent is permanently covered by ice 1.6 km thick.

Much of the population (~75%) of Canada’s north live south of the Arctic circle and the vast majority live along the coast of Hudson Bay, Baffin Island or the Arctic Ocean. According to Wiki, the southern continent is entirely south of the Antarctic circle.

The residents of the Arctic rely on an ecosystem that has an annual summer season. The snow and sea ice melt. The Inuit are hunters / gatherers and have been able to sustain themselves in a relatively diverse ecosystem. Land mammals are hunted for their meat and skins. Arctic Char and other fresh water species of fish are part of the diet. Hunting of marine mammals such as seal, walrus and whale are vital to the survival of the Inuit. There is some edible vegetation. I don’t know how much this contributes to Inuit diet versus feeding the hunted animals, but berries and other nutritious flora does exist. It appears that there is not such a varied ecosystem at Antarctica. The conditions do not exist to support land based animals more complex than birds.

Polar bears are specialized hunters. Their survival depends on their ability to spend many months on the sea ice hunting very energy-rich seals. I don’t know if polar bears could hunt or sustain themselves on a diet of penguin. Nor do I know if the seal population follows any sort of migratory route that keeps it in ice conditions conducive to bear hunting patterns.

Without doing in-depth research, my answer is that the conditions at Antarctica are so different than the Northern polar region that humans and polar bears could not survive in that ecosystem.

Does lichen, a source of Vitamin C, grow in Antarctica?

Yes, but you’ll see that Cecil has shown that a diet high in protein from raw meat has enough vitamin C to sustain human beings.

Funny, I just finished Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson. It deals with this very issue. Well, the issue of humans on Antarctica, not polar bears. It takes place in some unspecified near future, where some significant global warming has occurred. I don’t know how “factual” it is, and I’m not going to spoil the book for you, but you might find it an interesting read.

I was about to mention Antarctica! Stan Robinson spent some time (2 months? 3 months? I forget) in Antarctica researching the book and he tends to stick a lot closer to science than many science fiction writers! His characters are all using cutting-edge technology though, not ancestral skills handed down through the generations…

I expect polar bears could survice on various sub-antarctic islands - South Georgia or Kerguelan for instance - which both manage to support imported reindeer herds, but not on the actual mainland of Antarctica.