LISTEN | Full interview with Holly Gamblin: As It Happens 3:09 When a polar bear kills, it feeds a whole ecosystem

When a polar bear kills its prey, it’s not the only one who gets to reap the bloody benefits.

Many of nature’s apex predators guard their dinner from scavengers until they’ve gobbled up every last morsel and licked the bones clean. But scientists say polar bars tend to eat what they need, and leave the rest behind for other Arctic critters to munch.

A new study, published the journal Oikos , estimates that one polar bear provides roughly 300 kilograms of meat per year for other animals to dine on. With 26,000 polar bears in the Arctic, that’s a whopping 7.6 million kilograms of food annually.

“If we lose polar bears from the Arctic … nothing can replace

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