Things are worse than ever--a mini-briefing

Luminoso wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:53:42 -0500, Mike <prabbit1.DeleteThis@shamrocksgf.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Jeff Caird wrote:
>> Anyway, polar bears
>>> are just a variety of grizzly that evolved special adaptations
>>> to arctic conditions. No doubt they would revert and return to
>>> eating elk and caribou instead of seals.
>> They probably adapted over thousands, if not tens of thousands, of
>> years. They can't revert in just a couple of hundred (if they have that
>> long.)
>
> Depends on how hungry they get. They have no qualms
> about eating people, for example ...
>

It's not just a matter of food. It's a matter of temperature. Polar
bears will overheat above 10C (50 degrees F) and actually use the snow
and ice packs, at times, to cool themselves down on.

They also might attack humans but we're slow-moving prey compared to elk
and moose. Polar bears have evolved to use stealth and stalking to catch
their prey and don't have the sustained speed of a grizzly for chasing
down herd animals.

They simply can't change their ways fast enough to survive in the woods
like a grizzly in a matter of decades/centuries.