Five interesting facts about polar bears

Churchill, Manitoba is the polar bear capital of the world, and we had the opportunity to go out there during the annual polar bear migration to learn firsthand about the bears and the impacts of their changing environment. We also had a chance to try and find them for ourselves. Spotted. One sole male eating kelp. We also had an amazing chance to speak with Dr. Ian Sterling who has studied polar bears in the Arctic for over 30 years and sure knows a lot about them. So we decided to ask him for five fun facts about polar bears. Fact number one, while they have to eat around 43 ring seals a year to survive, they're eating mostly fat. They don't eat the skin very much. They don't eat the bones. They just eat the fat and they're actually capable of digesting that fat with a 96 to 97% efficiency. Now we think we get fat sometimes under eating too much. We don't have anything on a polar bear. Fact number two, a polar bear's fur isn't actually white. It's sort of translucent and it reflects, reflects light. So it gives the impression of being white. The other thing associated with that is that their skin is black. Fact number three, polar bears are capable of delayed implantation and will decide if they're healthy enough to give birth. The body is able to measure itself physiologically and it knows, nope, not fat enough this year. Can't have cubs. And number four, the bears have small extremities for good reason. The polar bears have very small ears. They're just little ears like this and the similar with the tail of a polar bear is a little short, tiny stump and it's not going to be letting off very much heat. And fun fact, number five, a female polar bear can go up to nine months without eating any food. She goes into a den in maybe the middle of August and starts spending most of her time in there. Her cub is born around December and they're very tiny and so they have to keep them in the den and nurse them again on their stored fat. They're not eating anything until they can finally come out of the den around the end of March or early April. I don't think I could even survive a full day in Churchill for the weather network. I'm Mia Gordon.