{"id":33878,"date":"2017-04-13T07:48:09","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T07:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/how-polar-bears-find-their-prey\/"},"modified":"2017-04-13T07:48:04","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T07:48:04","slug":"how-polar-bears-find-their-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/how-polar-bears-find-their-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"How polar bears find their prey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Researchers at the University of Alberta have demystified the way that polar bears search for their typical prey of ringed seals. The answer, it turns out, is simple: they follow their nose using the power of wind.}<\/p>\n<p>Using satellite telemetry data collected from 123 adult polar bears in Canada&#8217;s Hudson Bay over 11 years, the researchers merged the movements of polar bears with wind patterns to explore how they looked for seals.<\/p>\n<p>They hypothesized that when a bear smells prey, it moves up-wind to find it. But what is a bear to do before it smells anything at all?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Predators search for prey using odours in the air, and their success depends on how they move relative to the wind,&#8221; explained Ron Togunov, University of Alberta alumnus and lead author on the study. &#8220;Travelling crosswind gives the bears a steady supply of new air streams and maximizes the area they can sense through smell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While this phenomenon had been suspected in many animals, it had not been quantified in mammals until now.<\/p>\n<p>The best conditions for olfactory hunting, explained UAlberta professor Andrew Derocher, co-author and polar bear expert, takes place at night during the winter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Crosswind search was most frequent when winds were slow, when is is easier to localize the source of a certain smell, and at night when bears are relatively active and when vision is less effective, so bears rely more heavily on their sense of smell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The findings also raise questions about the implications of climate change.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Wind speeds in the Arctic are projected to increase, potentially making olfaction more difficult,&#8221; explained Togunov. &#8220;It is important to understand how polar bear hunting success will be affected by these changing conditions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The study, &#8220;Windscapes and olfactory foraging in a large carnivore,&#8221; was published in Scientific Reports in April 2017.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-19324 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/170412085342_1_540x360.jpg\" alt=\"Using satellite telemetry data collected from 123 adult polar bears in Canada&#039;s Hudson Bay over 11 years, the researchers merged the movements of polar bears with wind patterns to explore how they looked for seals. \" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:Science Daily <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Researchers at the University of Alberta have demystified the way that polar bears search for their typical prey of ringed seals. The answer, it turns out, is simple: they follow their nose using the power of wind.} Using satellite telemetry data collected from 123 adult polar bears in Canada&#8217;s Hudson Bay over 11 years, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[75],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-homenews","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33878"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33878"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}