A couple of months ago the journal Polar Biology published a paper about a polar bear's having chased a reindeer into the sea, caught it, drowned it, dragged the carcass back to land, and feasted on it. "Yes, they can: polar bears Ursus maritimus successfully hunt Svalbard reindeer Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus" didn't make a lot of noise at first and probably didn't deserve to. But count on popular media to spin and hype what's actually mundane if it can be tied, even speculatively, to … [Read more...]