Animals that practice social distancing - #1 Polar Bears

For over a month now, we have been advised to practice social distancing in our life. This is something that is a little difficult for Humans as we are naturally social beings and prefer to live and stay in groups. In my country, we live in a Joint family system. There are some animals who live in a similar joint family system where they are dependent on each other for food shelter and socializing. But when that is there in one part of the world, there is also another group of animals who hate socializing and live as solitary beings. In this article, I'm going to talk about one such solitary being that practices social distancing.

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Sometimes from the looks of it, it is misunderstood that polar bears live in groups and stay in groups. It is not the case. A well-grown made polar bear is very dangerous and it can even kill other polar bears when there is an actual fight. They prefer to hunt alone and have their meals alone. Polar bears after hunting, fight hard to preserve their meal. The strongest polar bear always wins the fight and the hunt goes to that bear.

They start as a family

Most of these solitary beings live together only when there is a need for reproduction. The male and female polar bears come together during their mating season. On other days we cannot see them together and they can be dangerous to each other. The polar bears eat a lot and get themselves ready for the hibernation period. During the winter season, it becomes very hard for the polar bears to survive outside. They go inside their den and stay there for over 3 months until winter is over. During this hibernation period, they don't eat anything and stay alive with the fat reserves in their body.

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Pregnant polar bears produce their young ones during this lockdown period. When the winter is over, they come out of their den as a family. Female polar bears take care of their young ones from that point onwards until they are ready to hunt by themselves. They stay together for over 1 or 2 years based on the need and they all go in different paths. During this family time, the mother polar bear will hunt for the family and the meal will be shared among the family.

Solitary life of Polar Bears

In most of the places, food is scarce for the polar bears and they will have to do frequent hunting to keep their fat reserves good before they can go for hibernation during the winter season. All polar bears prefer a solitary life. When they are starting their lives, they stay with their mother until a point where they are capable of hunting their own food. It is quite usual to see polar bears with 2 cubs. The 2 cubs stay together and play with each other together until they are dependent on their mother. After they are grown up, all three will go in their own ways.

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From the looks of it, polar bears can look cute and also look harmless but they are capable of killing anything for food. They are even capable of killing their own species for food. If there is a scarcity of food, a grown polar bear can even hunt the little polar bear cubs. That is why the cubs stay with their mother for over a year until they can hunt for themselves. Grown polar bears don't even share their meal. Even, if the hunting is done by another polar bear, they scavenge the meal and fight for it. Because of this solitary nature of Polar bears they are also becoming endangered in some of the places in the world. The imbalance in nature is also contributing to this factor where they end up with less food and temperature changes.

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