https://www.sciencenews.org/article/polar-bears-bludgeon-walrus-stones-tools-ice-inuit

DD'eDeN aka note/nickname/alas_my_loves wrote:
> https://www.sciencenews.org/article/polar-bears-bludgeon-walrus-stones-tools-ice-inuit

The paper is open access.

https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/view/72532/54935

Abstract
Since the late 1700s, reports of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) using tools
(i.e.,
pieces of ice or stones) to kill walruses (Odobenus rosmarus) have been
passed
on verbally to explorers and naturalists by their Inuit guides, based on
local
traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) as well as accounts of direct
observations
or interpretations of tracks in the snow made by the Inuit hunters who
reported
them. To assess the possibility that polar bears may occasionally use
tools to
hunt walruses in the wild, we summarize 1) observations described to early
explorers and naturalists by Inuit hunters about polar bears using tools,
2) more
recent documentation in the literature from Inuit hunters and scientists,
and 3)
recent observations of a polar bear in a zoo spontaneously using tools to
access
a novel food source. These observations and previously published experiments
on brown bears (Ursus arctos) confirm that, in captivity, polar and brown
bears
are both capable of conceptualizing the use of a tool to obtain a food source
that would otherwise not be accessible. Based on the information from all our
sources, this may occasionally also have been the case in the wild. We
suggest
that possible tool use by polar bears in the wild is infrequent and mainly
limited
to hunting walruses because of their large size, difficulty to kill, and
their
possession of potentially lethal weapons for both their own defense and the
direct attack of a predator.