bobbing for apples
by Douglas J. Lanzo
polar bear on off-shore rock
jaw-clamps belugas
Deprived of seal hunting grounds due to melting ice, polar bears swim out to rocks and await high tide. These apex predators then pounce on unsuspecting belugas as they pass by their rocks, clamping down on their heads with skull-crushing jaws. But for this brutal improvization in hunting technique, some polar bears might otherwise starve. Receding Arctic ice greatly diminishes their ability to stalk seals surfacing through, or basking on, the ice.
Further reading:
‘Incredible moment a starving polar bear kills a beluga whale in Canada as ‘climate change’ forces the predators to hunt new prey’, 2019, Carr, J., Daily Mail, available: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7741099/Polar-bear-dives-pod-beluga-whales-David-Attenboroughs-Seven-Worlds-One-Planet.html
‘Filming the world’s most captivating animals for a spectacular series’, 2019, BBC, available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/23z89nKK5Mb9v36WpsdGldN/filming-the-worlds-most-captivating-animals-for-a-spectacular-series
‘Seal River polar bears hunting belugas. BBC Earth. Seven Worlds, One Planet’, 2020, Williams, G., Churchill Wild, available: https://churchillwild.com/seal-river-polar-bears-hunting-belugas-appear-in-new-bbc-earth-series-seven-worlds-one-planet-new-arctic-adventures-on-the-horizon/
Author bio:
Doug is an award-winning American author and poet of over 500 internationally published poems whose debut novel ‘The Year of the Bear’ won the Ames Award for YA Books and whose second book ‘I Have Lived’ was named American Book Fest Novella of the Year. His Author’s website is www.douglaslanzo.com.