Aquatic stacking is a hunting technique used to catch seal by polar bears. Unlike the traditional way of waiting for snow breathing holes, aquatic stacking includes open water or ice -ice to the bear swimming through the ice side of the ice edge. Polar bears use their white fur as camouflage in icy or icy environment, allowing them to mix and detect them without any closeness. When the beggar is stopped enough, the bear suddenly starts an explosive attack, often breaks through ice or breaks the lungs with water to catch the seal. This method requires patience, strength and accurate time, as the seal is highly cautious and quick to escape in water.
Aquatic stacking is a hunting technique used to catch seal by polar bears. Aquatic stacking is a hunting technique used to catch seal by polar bears. Unlike the more passive method of waiting for ice breathing holes, aquatic stacking involves swimming bear through open water or ice to go near the seal that relaxes on the snow edge.
Aquatic stacking is seen especially during the warming months of spring (April and May) seen in areas where sea ice is still present on the ground, such as preserved internal fjords of the Spitsbergen region. This behavior displays adaptability and skills of polar bears as a top hunter in the Arctic Ecosystem.
Polar bears use aquatic stacking to hunt seal, especially when seal puppies are born in spring. The bear knows that this is an important time – Bimmel bearded seals often leave their newborn puppies alone on ice, while they circle nearby in water, check for predators. Polar bears are widely known about this behavior.
Once it selects a goal, the bear quietly enters the water to get closer from one ice flow to another. Here, this incredibly clever bear is coming out of the water very slowly, before entering, slowly swimming and quietly to reach your next ice stage below the surface.
From a distance, the polar bear can see the seal puppy that relaxes on the ice from the top of the surface. But before making a trick, it immerses your head into water to look down. Seeing the mother floating down and traceing the ice shapes from the bottom, the bear forms a mental map of the region. This behavior helps the bear to indicate his position once under water, so it can swim quietly and reach the exact location under snow where the puppy is lying up – ready to strike with accuracy.
Polar bears are not only powerful swimmers, but also highly strategic hunters. One of their notable abilities is to submerge under water for two minutes, so that they can reach a victim without quietly detecting. The bears can dive and revive at a calculated distance, reduce noise and visibility.
In addition to their ability to hold breathing, the polar bears are known to travel large and deliberately in the water to reach the specific points of the attack. These places are not selected randomly-they often target areas where seal activity is high, such as cracks in ice, carriage-out zone, or breathing holes. By combining swimming endurance, patience and accurate time, polar bears can surprise their prey with fatal efficiency.
strike; This precise moment of explosive appearance of the polar bear- the cruel climax of a long water stalk. After being briefly diverted by Mother Seal to the right, and her desperate effort to save her puppy, the bear launched with force and accurate with icy water.
The puppy, relaxes on the flow of ice, becomes a target in this partition-second of violent motion. It is a difficult, emotional moment that reflects the dynamics of the rigorous existence of the polar world, where every life hangs in a delicate balance.
Top hunter grows slowly with cold water on ice, its broad back has its widespread back. In its mouth, a bearded seal puppy hangs towards his fate. There is no conflict, no fight – only as a soft peace as the puppy already lets go, such as the world, so new and full of light some time ago, had become too heavy to tolerate suddenly, suddenly.
A kind of gentle surrender that speaks loudly compared to conflict. The face of a soul who trusted the world – and met with silence.
The power of the scene lies in its cruel peace – was suspended in the last time time, just before the unavoidable. The bearded seal puppy is spread over the ice, its wide eyes are fixed on the freedom of open water.
The bears’ claws dig into the snow, the muscles with raw force, the jaw participated. The final vision of the seal is not the horizon, not the cold arctic sky, but the unstoppable force of nature below. This division is the second where existence ends and takes silence – a moment where everything changes forever.
The spring in the svalbard is an important season for polar bears, which offers essential prey opportunities before rapidly retreating ice. Rapid ice, sea ice, which is associated with coastal and fjords, provides an important platform for polar bears to hunt its primary hunting – seal. In the early spring, the seal goes out to relax on ice and give birth to the ice dens, making them more accessible to the polar bears. The bears greatly rely on this period to build fat reserves that will maintain them through lean months when hunting becomes more difficult.
As the temperature rises, the strong snow starts to break and flows away from the ground, reduces the area on which the polar bears can effectively hunt. This shrinking ice cover bears forces the bear to quickly adapt, often they need to travel long distances in search of food, either rapidly crossing unstable ice. Each day of hunting opportunity becomes more valuable, as successful hunting should now compensate for a longer period of food shortage in the year.
The average spring temperature is likely to retreat even faster before a final increase, making the hunting season even smaller. This quick process ends the delicate balance of survival in the Arctic.
In this way, the spring represents a brief window of both abundance and a twist, emphasizing the delicate balance polar bear and navigating in a rapidly changing arch -changing arctic atmosphere.
Black and white pictures
Image Credit: Virgil regalioni ,Instagram,
About the author: Virgil regalioni A campaign leader and award -winning is a photographer who specializes in the polar landscape and northern lights.
