October 31, 2025 • 18 mins
A top predator that “wastes” food and ends up feeding an entire ecosystem? That paradox sits at the heart of our latest exploration into polar bear behavior and the hidden scaffolding of the Arctic food web. We unpack new research estimating that each polar bear leaves roughly 300 kilograms of edible remains annually—amounting to millions of kilograms across the region—and why those leftovers are vital calories for Arctic foxes, ravens, gulls, snowy owls, and even wolves. By focusing on blubber for maximum energy return, polar bears inadvertently act as providers in a landscape where every calorie matters, and we trace how shrinking sea ice threatens not just bears but the scavengers who depend on their kills.
From icy shores to living rooms, we then tackle a beloved belief: can dogs judge human character? A Kyoto University study with 40 pet dogs put that idea to the test using a generous-versus-selfish setup. The result: no reliable preference for the kind human, even after direct interaction. We break down what this means for canine social cognition, why food-based tasks may miss the mark, and how ethics limit what scientists can test. Rather than a simple moral radar, dogs may rely on a complex blend of context, prior reinforcement, and human cues that are hard to capture in a two-choice experiment.
Along the way, we share field notes from polar bear country, practical insights for interpreting your dog’s behavior without overreading the wag, and a clear view of how climate change reshapes energy flows you rarely hear about. If you care about wildlife science, animal behavior, or how small choices ripple through entire systems, this one offers fresh data and useful takeaways.
Enjoy the show? Follow, share, and leave a quick review to help more curious listeners find us. Got a story or question we should cover next? Drop it in the comments and join the conversation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
Hello, science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zakowski.
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
And I'm Chris Zikoski.
SPEAKER_01 (00:14):
We're the pet parents of Bunsen, Beaker,
Bernoulli, and Ginger.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
SPEAKER_01 (00:21):
If you love science.
SPEAKER_00 (00:22):
And you love pets.
SPEAKER_01 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot.
So put on your safety glasses.
SPEAKER_00 (00:27):
And hold on to your tail.
SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello and welcome back to theScience Podcast.
We hope you're happy and healthyout there.
This is episode 31 of seasonseven.
Chris, happy Halloween.
We're recording this onHalloween.
SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
It is, it's Happy Halloween.
SPEAKER_01 (00:45):
With Bunsen being in a cone because of his surgery,
we didn't really go all out thisHalloween for costumes.
And that's okay because we'vegot so many dog costumes
already.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
Exactly.
And when Beaker was in a conelast year, we made her fries.
And then Bunsen was a hot dogand Bernoulli was a hamburger.
But we also are very cognizantof Bunsen's neck, and we didn't
want to add any extra weightaround his neck because we
definitely want to keep hisherniated disc healing and keep
(01:19):
him healthy.
SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
Yeah, so I did a flour thing.
I saw another dog person on theinternet do it where you cover
your hand with flour and thenyou just kind of hit not hit,
but you press your hand on thedog's head and you give them the
white hand of Saruman.
Of the dogs, they were soconfused when I did it.
They're just like, oh boy, Ijust want to be a part of it.
(01:44):
And then they're like, What justhappened?
But it comes off right away, andBernoulli was licking the flower
off the other two dogs.
So it was cute and relative.
I think that was Beaker probablyenjoyed that a lot better than
wearing a costume becausesometimes she's not she's all
over wearing like the bigelaborate costumes.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
Yeah.
And at least she didn't have towear a cone of fries.
SPEAKER_01 (02:07):
That's true.
All right, let's get on with theshow.
This week in Science News, we'regoing to be talking about polar
bears and how much food theywaste.
And then in pet science, areally interesting study out of
Japan was looking at if dogs area good judge of character.
Because that's something that wealways say is that I'll I don't
(02:28):
know if I can trust you unless adog trusts you.
Have you heard that before, orsomething along that line?
SPEAKER_00 (02:33):
Yep, I have.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
All right, there's no time like Science Time.
This week in Science News, let'stalk about how much food polar
bears waste.
Um, and I actually knew aboutthis.
I know you you've read thearticle too, but I know about
this because I was lucky enoughto actually go to the tundra and
(02:58):
see polar bears.
SPEAKER_00 (03:00):
I know you planned a whole trip for your science
department, and it was such agreat time that you were able to
get into the little buggy and goto where the polar bears were
and see them in action.
SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
Yeah, that it was no little buggy.
It was actually a massive tundrabuggy.
What really sticks in my mind isthe school buses that we loaded
up in from the airport with thetour company.
Every school bus had a shotgunhanging right above the driver.
Not something you'd definitelysee on a normal school bus, but
(03:33):
it's because uh those shotgunsare loaded with buckshot.
And if the polar bears tried toget a tourist, they could scare
them away with these shotguns.
And I just thought it wasapocalyptic.
You'd see that in a zombie movieor something where somebody's
attached a shotgun right besidethe driver.
SPEAKER_00 (03:52):
Did they talk about how often they use them, or is
it just there for protection?
SPEAKER_01 (03:58):
Very rarely, but it does happen.
And the other thing in ChurchRail, Manitoba, another fun fact
before we get to the science,it's generally advised that you
don't lock your door.
You don't lock your door becausefor your cars or your house.
So anybody who's being chased bya polar bear has somewhere quick
to go.
(04:18):
Isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
I guess it's not really funny because if you were
being chased by a polar bear,you would be very sad if all the
doors were locked and then yougot eaten because polar bears
are fierce, not friendly.
They look so cute, but you wouldbe saying goodbye to your face
and your whole entire body.
No, not your whole entire body,because they actually waste a
(04:41):
lot of the food that they eat.
And we're going to talk aboutthat in this article.
SPEAKER_01 (04:46):
Right.
The study was published October28th in Oikos, and it talked
about how they tracked how muchwasted food a polar bear makes.
So a single polar bear leavesabout 300 kilograms of prey
every year for other animals toeat.
Collectively, that means all ofthe polar bears contribute to
(05:07):
around 7.6 million kilograms ofcarrion across the Arctic.
And this scavenged material is asuper important food source for
the food web that's up there.
And it helps sustain all of theother ecosystems around the
polar bear being the toppredator.
(05:28):
Now, Chris, why do polar bearswaste so much food?
SPEAKER_00 (05:32):
That's an interesting question, Jason.
What they found is that polarbears mainly consume the seal
blubber and they leave behindthe rest of the carcass, which I
found surprising.
I thought bears would eat all ofeat all of it, but no, polar
bears really love out of it.
Yeah.
Polar bears mainly consume thatseal blubber, and they're like,
(05:55):
I don't need the rest of it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:57):
And yeah, now the study doesn't talk about the
reason why, but I know this isme interjecting with my polar
bear knowledge.
Um, it is just not caloricallyuh worth it for a polar bear to
eat anything other than fat.
So they only eat when they killa seal because they go out and
(06:17):
they hunt seal, that's why theyonly eat the fat.
Because if they were to eat themeat, like the protein in a
seal, it doesn't actually givethem enough calories for how
much calories it would take todigest it.
So that's why they just eat thefat.
SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
Wow, cost benefit of eating a whole meal versus just
the fat.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Celery for humans.
SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
Yeah, celery for humans.
Exactly.
Delicious.
But until now, scientistsactually underestimated the
ecological importance of thoseleftovers that they leave
behind.
The team actually revieweddecades of scavenging records
and anecdotes dating back from along time ago, from the 1930s,
(07:03):
and the data on seal caloriccontent and the polar bear
feeding frequency.
So they looked at that data todrive their study.
SPEAKER_01 (07:16):
When it's peak hunting season, a polar bear can
kill a seal every three to fivedays, and they mostly hunt
ringed seals.
So over a year, that's about athousand kilograms of food
consumed per bear, but theytypically only eat 70% of the
kill, leaving about 30% of thecarrion.
Seals are mostly blubber.
(07:38):
So there's give or take 26,000polar bears in the Arctic.
These leftovers actually add upinto millions of kilograms of
food.
And where does that food go?
SPEAKER_00 (07:49):
The scavengers include Arctic foxes and gulls
and ravens and actually evenother polar bears.
Occasionally, sometimes wolvesor grizzly bears and also snowy
owls will feed on the carrion orthe remains.
Now, it's interesting becausemany of these species actually
(08:10):
couldn't access that kind ofmeat without having the polar
bear's leftovers.
And what when they were out inthe field and watching and
observing, they found that thefoxes followed the polar bear
tracks and they waited for theabandoned carcasses.
So they waited in line.
SPEAKER_01 (08:29):
Dangerous game to play.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
Yeah, it's like going to the restaurant and
waiting at your table with yourfork and spoon.
And the birds, they circledoverhead, of course, and they
created a loud commotion as theywaited for their turn to feed.
Feed me.
SPEAKER_01 (08:45):
Now, one of the things this study brought to
light was just how importantpolar bears are to all these
other animals.
And polar bear numbers arefalling, they're declining due
to Arctic temperature rise.
And it doesn't take much of amathematician to realize that
the less polar bears, you haveless of this carrion, and you
start to lose all of that extrafood for the predator.
(09:10):
All of that extra food for thescavengers under the polar bear
in the food web.
It could possibly lead tohorrific cascading effects and
an ecosystem collapse if there'snot enough polar bears.
And that's not something I knewbefore.
SPEAKER_00 (09:28):
It is.
Another thing when we're talkingabout climate change is the
melting sea ice.
And that actually may make itharder for the scavengers to go
and locate or to reach theremains of the polar bears that
they leave behind.
SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
Yeah, polar bears are amazing swimmers.
They can swim long, longdistances.
But those other animals youmentioned, some of them are not
that kind of amazing swimmers.
In fact, one more TED talk polarpolar bear factoid.
Uh, polar bears are actuallyconsidered aquatic animals.
Like they're considered animalsthat live in water more than
(10:06):
they live on land, which isshocking.
Isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_00 (10:11):
It is funny.
They're excellent swimmers, andI love that for them.
SPEAKER_01 (10:15):
Yeah.
Man, you just have to putyourself, think about those
early explorers that came downthrough Hudson Bay.
What would they have thoughtwhen they saw a polar bear for
the first time?
SPEAKER_00 (10:26):
They would have thought, oh man, this is the
cutest little bear.
I'm gonna make a beanie baby outof it.
And then they were very sad whenthey found out how fierce they
were.
SPEAKER_01 (10:37):
Yeah.
So there's a rhyme with bears.
Have you heard the rhyme withbears before, Chris?
We'll leave we'll end with that.
SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
I have not, unless I have, and I don't know what
you're alluding to.
SPEAKER_01 (10:51):
Okay.
If it's brown, lay down.
If it's black, fight back.
And if it's white, kiss yourbutt goodbye.
Okay.
It's not really a rhyme, butlike you possibly can get out of
it if you're tangled with abrown or black bear.
(11:12):
But if if uh polar bear iscoming at you, you're done.
You're just toast.
There's no chance.
SPEAKER_00 (11:18):
Oh no.
SPEAKER_01 (11:19):
All right.
That's science news for thisweek.
This weekend pet science.
Let's talk about this study thatmight ruffle some feathers or
get your hackles up.
It's answering the question (11:31):
can dogs judge character?
I want to believe that.
Do you want to believe that dogscan tell if people are good or
bad?
SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
I do.
And I think many people believethat dogs can sense a person's
character, like you said in theintro.
And in they interpret the dog'sfriendliness as a sign of
trustworthiness.
And if the dog is hesitant, it'sa sign of unease.
SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
Yeah.
And this is a very commonbelief.
So I believe that, and I mightstill believe it after the
study, though we're going to gothrough it.
But the science doesn't reallyunderstand whether dogs actually
form social evaluations ofhumans at all.
We just don't know if a dog canlook at a human and say think
(12:18):
it's that person's good or bad.
Now, other animals likechimpanzees can form reputations
of humans.
If you're a jerk to a chimpanzeebeside a different chimpanzee,
chimpanzee, then that otherchimpanzee watches that and be
like, You're a jerk.
I'm not going to be around you.
Uh, and then also dealing withyou personally.
(12:38):
So if you're a jerk to a chimp,that chimp is gonna remember
that.
Another do you know otheranimals can do that?
That can there's another theme.
Maybe ravens, like the Corvids.
SPEAKER_00 (12:52):
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_01 (12:52):
Yeah, I love the one study where like these uh
researchers weared AlbertEinstein masks and went and just
were jerks to a bunch of ravens,and then the ravens told
everybody about the AlbertEinstein masks, and then all of
the ravens hated the AlbertEinstein mask people.
So there you go.
SPEAKER_00 (13:09):
That sure is interesting about Einstein and
the Corvids or the Ravens notliking those people for messing
about.
The research that we are lookingat today about dogs was
conducted by a research teamfrom Kyoto University in Japan,
and it was published on June28th, 2025, in Animal Cognition.
(13:31):
And the study itself involved 40pet dogs of various ages, and
they had a goal which was totest whether age or
developmental stage affected adog's ability to form
reputations of humans, so to beable to judge you effectively.
SPEAKER_01 (13:48):
And the study is actually really fun.
There were two different phases.
The first phase was theeavesdropping phase.
So a dog watched another doginteract with two humans.
One of the humans was verygenerous, fed the demonstrator
dog, and the other human wasselfish.
It withheld food.
(14:09):
And then there was directinteraction.
So after observing, the dogsthemselves interacted with the
same two humans, and theyrecorded which human the dog
approached first, the dog'sapproxim the dog's proximity to
each person, and social behaviorlike tail waggings, jumpings, or
staying close.
(14:29):
What did they find, Chris?
SPEAKER_00 (14:31):
What they found was that across all age groups, that
dogs showed no consistentpreference for the generous
person over the selfish one.
That was a surprise to me.
I thought they would all lovethe treat lady or the treat
gentleman.
And their behavior towards bothhumans did not exceed chance
(14:52):
levels.
So that meant that anypreference could have been
random.
And it was actually true afterboth indirect observation and
having the direct experiencewith dealing with the humans.
So these findings suggest thatdogs may not easily form
reputations of humans, at leastnot in the way that the methods
(15:14):
were used in the study.
SPEAKER_01 (15:16):
Yeah, and that's important.
They used food, right?
One person gave food lots andthe other person didn't.
So that was one of theinterpretations of the study
that the how dogs form areputation of us is probably a
lot more complex.
Some of the challenges were thetwo-choice setup.
It might have been too simple tocapture subtle cognitive
(15:39):
processes.
And one of the things that I wasreading is it's just food.
It's not like one person wasbeing cruel, right?
Like you obviously could nevertest for this, um, where one
person was being cruel to a dogand the other person was being
kind.
I still think that dogs can tellif somebody is cruel to dogs.
(16:01):
But that's just me, and thestudy didn't go through that.
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
No, and that's a great thing to talk about
because not all dogs aremotivated by food.
That might not have beensomething that they would be
like, oh, I'm interested in youbecause I saw that you gave the
food.
I know all of our dogs are theywork for food, they love food.
They would run up to anybodywith food.
So I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (16:27):
But think of Beaker in like when we've been out and
about, especially with kids.
The kids don't have any food.
She wants to see all the kids atonce, right?
So that test may not beeffective because sometimes like
dogs are hardwired just to likepeople, especially if it's a
friendly dog.
Bunsen really likes kind ofeverybody now.
(16:49):
We're working on Bernoulli, he'sgetting a lot better, but beaker
is like a social butterfly.
So I don't know.
I she would just be happy to seeanybody and be oblivious to the
food, I think.
That's just my two cents.
SPEAKER_00 (17:02):
That's true.
I think so too.
SPEAKER_01 (17:05):
So the conclusion of this is while humans often
assume that dogs can judgepeople's character, based on
this evidence, we're not surehow they can or if they do it
all.
It's probably a lot morenuanced, and perhaps it's
something that studies can'treally do ethically.
And that's pet science for thisweek.
(17:27):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
And a shout out to all the topdogs.
That's the top tier of ourPatreon community, The Popac.
You can sign up in our shownotes.
All right, Chris, let's hearthose names that are part of the
top dogs.
SPEAKER_00 (17:44):
Amelia Fettig, Re Oda, Carol Haino, Jennifer
Challenge, Linnea Janet, KarenCronister, Vicky Oteiro, Christy
Walker, Sarah Bram, Wendy,Diane, Mason and Luke, Helen
Chin, Elizabeth Bourgeois,Marianne McNally, Katherine
Jordan, Shelly Smith, LauraStephenson, Tracy Leinbaugh,
(18:07):
Anne Uchida, Heather Burbach,Kelly, Tracy Halbert, Ben
Rather, Debbie Anderson, SandyBrimer, Mary Rader, Bianca Hyde,
Andrew Lynn, Brenda Clark,Brianne Hawes, Peggy McKeel,
Holly Burge, Kathy Zirker, SusanWagner, and Liz Button.
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
For science, empathy, and cuteness.
Hello, science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zakowski.
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
And I'm Chris Zikoski.
SPEAKER_01 (00:14):
We're the pet parents of Bunsen, Beaker,
Bernoulli, and Ginger.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
SPEAKER_01 (00:21):
If you love science.
SPEAKER_00 (00:22):
And you love pets.
SPEAKER_01 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot.
So put on your safety glasses.
SPEAKER_00 (00:27):
And hold on to your tail.
SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello and welcome back to theScience Podcast.
We hope you're happy and healthyout there.
This is episode 31 of seasonseven.
Chris, happy Halloween.
We're recording this onHalloween.
SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
It is, it's Happy Halloween.
SPEAKER_01 (00:45):
With Bunsen being in a cone because of his surgery,
we didn't really go all out thisHalloween for costumes.
And that's okay because we'vegot so many dog costumes
already.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
Exactly.
And when Beaker was in a conelast year, we made her fries.
And then Bunsen was a hot dogand Bernoulli was a hamburger.
But we also are very cognizantof Bunsen's neck, and we didn't
want to add any extra weightaround his neck because we
definitely want to keep hisherniated disc healing and keep
(01:19):
him healthy.
SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
Yeah, so I did a flour thing.
I saw another dog person on theinternet do it where you cover
your hand with flour and thenyou just kind of hit not hit,
but you press your hand on thedog's head and you give them the
white hand of Saruman.
Of the dogs, they were soconfused when I did it.
They're just like, oh boy, Ijust want to be a part of it.
(01:44):
And then they're like, What justhappened?
But it comes off right away, andBernoulli was licking the flower
off the other two dogs.
So it was cute and relative.
I think that was Beaker probablyenjoyed that a lot better than
wearing a costume becausesometimes she's not she's all
over wearing like the bigelaborate costumes.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
Yeah.
And at least she didn't have towear a cone of fries.
SPEAKER_01 (02:07):
That's true.
All right, let's get on with theshow.
This week in Science News, we'regoing to be talking about polar
bears and how much food theywaste.
And then in pet science, areally interesting study out of
Japan was looking at if dogs area good judge of character.
Because that's something that wealways say is that I'll I don't
(02:28):
know if I can trust you unless adog trusts you.
Have you heard that before, orsomething along that line?
SPEAKER_00 (02:33):
Yep, I have.
SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
All right, there's no time like Science Time.
This week in Science News, let'stalk about how much food polar
bears waste.
Um, and I actually knew aboutthis.
I know you you've read thearticle too, but I know about
this because I was lucky enoughto actually go to the tundra and
(02:58):
see polar bears.
SPEAKER_00 (03:00):
I know you planned a whole trip for your science
department, and it was such agreat time that you were able to
get into the little buggy and goto where the polar bears were
and see them in action.
SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
Yeah, that it was no little buggy.
It was actually a massive tundrabuggy.
What really sticks in my mind isthe school buses that we loaded
up in from the airport with thetour company.
Every school bus had a shotgunhanging right above the driver.
Not something you'd definitelysee on a normal school bus, but
(03:33):
it's because uh those shotgunsare loaded with buckshot.
And if the polar bears tried toget a tourist, they could scare
them away with these shotguns.
And I just thought it wasapocalyptic.
You'd see that in a zombie movieor something where somebody's
attached a shotgun right besidethe driver.
SPEAKER_00 (03:52):
Did they talk about how often they use them, or is
it just there for protection?
SPEAKER_01 (03:58):
Very rarely, but it does happen.
And the other thing in ChurchRail, Manitoba, another fun fact
before we get to the science,it's generally advised that you
don't lock your door.
You don't lock your door becausefor your cars or your house.
So anybody who's being chased bya polar bear has somewhere quick
to go.
(04:18):
Isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
I guess it's not really funny because if you were
being chased by a polar bear,you would be very sad if all the
doors were locked and then yougot eaten because polar bears
are fierce, not friendly.
They look so cute, but you wouldbe saying goodbye to your face
and your whole entire body.
No, not your whole entire body,because they actually waste a
(04:41):
lot of the food that they eat.
And we're going to talk aboutthat in this article.
SPEAKER_01 (04:46):
Right.
The study was published October28th in Oikos, and it talked
about how they tracked how muchwasted food a polar bear makes.
So a single polar bear leavesabout 300 kilograms of prey
every year for other animals toeat.
Collectively, that means all ofthe polar bears contribute to
(05:07):
around 7.6 million kilograms ofcarrion across the Arctic.
And this scavenged material is asuper important food source for
the food web that's up there.
And it helps sustain all of theother ecosystems around the
polar bear being the toppredator.
(05:28):
Now, Chris, why do polar bearswaste so much food?
SPEAKER_00 (05:32):
That's an interesting question, Jason.
What they found is that polarbears mainly consume the seal
blubber and they leave behindthe rest of the carcass, which I
found surprising.
I thought bears would eat all ofeat all of it, but no, polar
bears really love out of it.
Yeah.
Polar bears mainly consume thatseal blubber, and they're like,
(05:55):
I don't need the rest of it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:57):
And yeah, now the study doesn't talk about the
reason why, but I know this isme interjecting with my polar
bear knowledge.
Um, it is just not caloricallyuh worth it for a polar bear to
eat anything other than fat.
So they only eat when they killa seal because they go out and
(06:17):
they hunt seal, that's why theyonly eat the fat.
Because if they were to eat themeat, like the protein in a
seal, it doesn't actually givethem enough calories for how
much calories it would take todigest it.
So that's why they just eat thefat.
SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
Wow, cost benefit of eating a whole meal versus just
the fat.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Celery for humans.
SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
Yeah, celery for humans.
Exactly.
Delicious.
But until now, scientistsactually underestimated the
ecological importance of thoseleftovers that they leave
behind.
The team actually revieweddecades of scavenging records
and anecdotes dating back from along time ago, from the 1930s,
(07:03):
and the data on seal caloriccontent and the polar bear
feeding frequency.
So they looked at that data todrive their study.
SPEAKER_01 (07:16):
When it's peak hunting season, a polar bear can
kill a seal every three to fivedays, and they mostly hunt
ringed seals.
So over a year, that's about athousand kilograms of food
consumed per bear, but theytypically only eat 70% of the
kill, leaving about 30% of thecarrion.
Seals are mostly blubber.
(07:38):
So there's give or take 26,000polar bears in the Arctic.
These leftovers actually add upinto millions of kilograms of
food.
And where does that food go?
SPEAKER_00 (07:49):
The scavengers include Arctic foxes and gulls
and ravens and actually evenother polar bears.
Occasionally, sometimes wolvesor grizzly bears and also snowy
owls will feed on the carrion orthe remains.
Now, it's interesting becausemany of these species actually
(08:10):
couldn't access that kind ofmeat without having the polar
bear's leftovers.
And what when they were out inthe field and watching and
observing, they found that thefoxes followed the polar bear
tracks and they waited for theabandoned carcasses.
So they waited in line.
SPEAKER_01 (08:29):
Dangerous game to play.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
Yeah, it's like going to the restaurant and
waiting at your table with yourfork and spoon.
And the birds, they circledoverhead, of course, and they
created a loud commotion as theywaited for their turn to feed.
Feed me.
SPEAKER_01 (08:45):
Now, one of the things this study brought to
light was just how importantpolar bears are to all these
other animals.
And polar bear numbers arefalling, they're declining due
to Arctic temperature rise.
And it doesn't take much of amathematician to realize that
the less polar bears, you haveless of this carrion, and you
start to lose all of that extrafood for the predator.
(09:10):
All of that extra food for thescavengers under the polar bear
in the food web.
It could possibly lead tohorrific cascading effects and
an ecosystem collapse if there'snot enough polar bears.
And that's not something I knewbefore.
SPEAKER_00 (09:28):
It is.
Another thing when we're talkingabout climate change is the
melting sea ice.
And that actually may make itharder for the scavengers to go
and locate or to reach theremains of the polar bears that
they leave behind.
SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
Yeah, polar bears are amazing swimmers.
They can swim long, longdistances.
But those other animals youmentioned, some of them are not
that kind of amazing swimmers.
In fact, one more TED talk polarpolar bear factoid.
Uh, polar bears are actuallyconsidered aquatic animals.
Like they're considered animalsthat live in water more than
(10:06):
they live on land, which isshocking.
Isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_00 (10:11):
It is funny.
They're excellent swimmers, andI love that for them.
SPEAKER_01 (10:15):
Yeah.
Man, you just have to putyourself, think about those
early explorers that came downthrough Hudson Bay.
What would they have thoughtwhen they saw a polar bear for
the first time?
SPEAKER_00 (10:26):
They would have thought, oh man, this is the
cutest little bear.
I'm gonna make a beanie baby outof it.
And then they were very sad whenthey found out how fierce they
were.
SPEAKER_01 (10:37):
Yeah.
So there's a rhyme with bears.
Have you heard the rhyme withbears before, Chris?
We'll leave we'll end with that.
SPEAKER_00 (10:46):
I have not, unless I have, and I don't know what
you're alluding to.
SPEAKER_01 (10:51):
Okay.
If it's brown, lay down.
If it's black, fight back.
And if it's white, kiss yourbutt goodbye.
Okay.
It's not really a rhyme, butlike you possibly can get out of
it if you're tangled with abrown or black bear.
(11:12):
But if if uh polar bear iscoming at you, you're done.
You're just toast.
There's no chance.
SPEAKER_00 (11:18):
Oh no.
SPEAKER_01 (11:19):
All right.
That's science news for thisweek.
This weekend pet science.
Let's talk about this study thatmight ruffle some feathers or
get your hackles up.
It's answering the question (11:31):
can dogs judge character?
I want to believe that.
Do you want to believe that dogscan tell if people are good or
bad?
SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
I do.
And I think many people believethat dogs can sense a person's
character, like you said in theintro.
And in they interpret the dog'sfriendliness as a sign of
trustworthiness.
And if the dog is hesitant, it'sa sign of unease.
SPEAKER_01 (11:56):
Yeah.
And this is a very commonbelief.
So I believe that, and I mightstill believe it after the
study, though we're going to gothrough it.
But the science doesn't reallyunderstand whether dogs actually
form social evaluations ofhumans at all.
We just don't know if a dog canlook at a human and say think
(12:18):
it's that person's good or bad.
Now, other animals likechimpanzees can form reputations
of humans.
If you're a jerk to a chimpanzeebeside a different chimpanzee,
chimpanzee, then that otherchimpanzee watches that and be
like, You're a jerk.
I'm not going to be around you.
Uh, and then also dealing withyou personally.
(12:38):
So if you're a jerk to a chimp,that chimp is gonna remember
that.
Another do you know otheranimals can do that?
That can there's another theme.
Maybe ravens, like the Corvids.
SPEAKER_00 (12:52):
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_01 (12:52):
Yeah, I love the one study where like these uh
researchers weared AlbertEinstein masks and went and just
were jerks to a bunch of ravens,and then the ravens told
everybody about the AlbertEinstein masks, and then all of
the ravens hated the AlbertEinstein mask people.
So there you go.
SPEAKER_00 (13:09):
That sure is interesting about Einstein and
the Corvids or the Ravens notliking those people for messing
about.
The research that we are lookingat today about dogs was
conducted by a research teamfrom Kyoto University in Japan,
and it was published on June28th, 2025, in Animal Cognition.
(13:31):
And the study itself involved 40pet dogs of various ages, and
they had a goal which was totest whether age or
developmental stage affected adog's ability to form
reputations of humans, so to beable to judge you effectively.
SPEAKER_01 (13:48):
And the study is actually really fun.
There were two different phases.
The first phase was theeavesdropping phase.
So a dog watched another doginteract with two humans.
One of the humans was verygenerous, fed the demonstrator
dog, and the other human wasselfish.
It withheld food.
(14:09):
And then there was directinteraction.
So after observing, the dogsthemselves interacted with the
same two humans, and theyrecorded which human the dog
approached first, the dog'sapproxim the dog's proximity to
each person, and social behaviorlike tail waggings, jumpings, or
staying close.
(14:29):
What did they find, Chris?
SPEAKER_00 (14:31):
What they found was that across all age groups, that
dogs showed no consistentpreference for the generous
person over the selfish one.
That was a surprise to me.
I thought they would all lovethe treat lady or the treat
gentleman.
And their behavior towards bothhumans did not exceed chance
(14:52):
levels.
So that meant that anypreference could have been
random.
And it was actually true afterboth indirect observation and
having the direct experiencewith dealing with the humans.
So these findings suggest thatdogs may not easily form
reputations of humans, at leastnot in the way that the methods
(15:14):
were used in the study.
SPEAKER_01 (15:16):
Yeah, and that's important.
They used food, right?
One person gave food lots andthe other person didn't.
So that was one of theinterpretations of the study
that the how dogs form areputation of us is probably a
lot more complex.
Some of the challenges were thetwo-choice setup.
It might have been too simple tocapture subtle cognitive
(15:39):
processes.
And one of the things that I wasreading is it's just food.
It's not like one person wasbeing cruel, right?
Like you obviously could nevertest for this, um, where one
person was being cruel to a dogand the other person was being
kind.
I still think that dogs can tellif somebody is cruel to dogs.
(16:01):
But that's just me, and thestudy didn't go through that.
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
No, and that's a great thing to talk about
because not all dogs aremotivated by food.
That might not have beensomething that they would be
like, oh, I'm interested in youbecause I saw that you gave the
food.
I know all of our dogs are theywork for food, they love food.
They would run up to anybodywith food.
So I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (16:27):
But think of Beaker in like when we've been out and
about, especially with kids.
The kids don't have any food.
She wants to see all the kids atonce, right?
So that test may not beeffective because sometimes like
dogs are hardwired just to likepeople, especially if it's a
friendly dog.
Bunsen really likes kind ofeverybody now.
(16:49):
We're working on Bernoulli, he'sgetting a lot better, but beaker
is like a social butterfly.
So I don't know.
I she would just be happy to seeanybody and be oblivious to the
food, I think.
That's just my two cents.
SPEAKER_00 (17:02):
That's true.
I think so too.
SPEAKER_01 (17:05):
So the conclusion of this is while humans often
assume that dogs can judgepeople's character, based on
this evidence, we're not surehow they can or if they do it
all.
It's probably a lot morenuanced, and perhaps it's
something that studies can'treally do ethically.
And that's pet science for thisweek.
(17:27):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
And a shout out to all the topdogs.
That's the top tier of ourPatreon community, The Popac.
You can sign up in our shownotes.
All right, Chris, let's hearthose names that are part of the
top dogs.
SPEAKER_00 (17:44):
Amelia Fettig, Re Oda, Carol Haino, Jennifer
Challenge, Linnea Janet, KarenCronister, Vicky Oteiro, Christy
Walker, Sarah Bram, Wendy,Diane, Mason and Luke, Helen
Chin, Elizabeth Bourgeois,Marianne McNally, Katherine
Jordan, Shelly Smith, LauraStephenson, Tracy Leinbaugh,
(18:07):
Anne Uchida, Heather Burbach,Kelly, Tracy Halbert, Ben
Rather, Debbie Anderson, SandyBrimer, Mary Rader, Bianca Hyde,
Andrew Lynn, Brenda Clark,Brianne Hawes, Peggy McKeel,
Holly Burge, Kathy Zirker, SusanWagner, and Liz Button.
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
For science, empathy, and cuteness.
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