Polar Bears Research Paper

Polar bears live on the sea ice floes, surrounded by the Arctic ocean. They have an abundant source of seawater, which, unfortunately is not drinkable. Sea water is too salty and would make the polar bears thirstier even more. There are no fresh drinkable waters in the Arctic, yet, animals like polar bear require water to survive. However, polar bears can go a very long time without drinking any. They sometimes consume on snow, melting it into water. But, they can’t gain a large quantity of water as it takes a lot of energy to melt it. Likewise, they could eat bits of icebergs, but they are also too salty and takes energy to melt. Actually, polar bears mainly eat snow to cool themselves on a hot day. However, during the severe colder months, …show more content…
Camels in the desert have a similar adaptation - gaining water from their fat. Seals have a large amounts of fat (blubber) which the polar bears consume. When catching a seal, polar bears look for an adult seal with sufficient amount of fat. Fat is a mixture of hydrocarbons and has more energy than a protein. This is why they only eat the energy rich blubbers and not the meat. This is because, if they eat meat, they will have to digest and metabolize the large amounts of protein. They will need to get rid of the extra nitrogen that was in the protein by urinating. When polar bears urinate, they need to drink large quantities of water. So eating meat does the opposite - requiring more water to the body. On the other hand, metabolizing the fat releases water. The stored fat, is used as energy to combine with hydrogen, carbon atoms and oxygen to release carbon dioxide and produce water. Each gram of fat metabolized releases a gram of water. As polar bears consume more and more fat (blubber) from the seals, they will need to drink less water or not at all, as they produce water from the fat. The water produced stays the same whether the is burning the fat that has been recently consumed. In contrast, humans can’t metabolize fat into water and so we need to drink water. Not only polar bear’s own blubber helps them to survive, but the blubber of the seals they consume helps them with their diet and gives them a source of freshwater. Rebecca Jackrel witnessed many problems polar bears had against the summer months. Jackrel states, “When summer comes to Svalbard the ice pack melts and polar bears are stuck on land. Their metabolism slows down and they enter a kind of walking hibernation. They rely on the reserves of fat generated from a winter of hunting seals to sustain them through the summer months….” During the summer months, if food is scarce for the polar bears, they will not