Why These Bears “Waste” Food

Optimal foraging theory means that turning down food is sometimes more efficient than eating it - but even then, what’s “wasted” doesn’t necessarily go to waste.
LEARN MORE
**************
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Foraging: to search widely for food.
Optimal Foraging Theory: A behavioral model that describes how an animal should behave when searching for food.
Surplus Killing: a common behavior exhibited by predators, in which they kill more prey than they can immediately eat and then cache or abandon the remainder.
SUPPORT MINUTEEARTH
**************************
If you like what we do, you can help us!:
- Become our patron: / minuteearth
- Share this video with your friends and family
- Leave us a comment (we read them!)
CREDITS
*********
Cameron Duke | Script Writer
Kate Yoshida | Script Editor
Julián Gustavo Gómez | Narrator and Director
Adam Thompson | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music
MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC
neptunestudios.info
OUR STAFF
************
Sarah Berman • Arcadi Garcia i Rius
David Goldenberg • Julián Gustavo Gómez
Melissa Hayes • Alex Reich • Henry Reich • Peter Reich
Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida
OUR LINKS
************
KZbin | / minuteearth
TikTok | / minuteearth
Twitter | / minuteearth
Instagram | / minute_earth
Facebook | / minuteearth
Website | minuteearth.com
Apple Podcasts| podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
REFERENCES
**************
Alcock, J. (2013). Animal behavior : an evolutionary approach. Sinauer, Cop.
Hopkins, J. B. (2013). Use of genetics to investigate socially learned foraging behavior in free-ranging black bears. Journal of Mammalogy, 94(6), 1214-1222. doi.org/10.1644/13-mamm-a-009.1
Klinka, D. R., & Reimchen, T. E. (2009). Darkness, Twilight, and Daylight Foraging Success of Bears (Ursus americanus) on Salmon in Coastal British Columbia. Journal of Mammalogy, 90(1), 144-149. doi.org/10.1644/07-mamm-a-200.1
Lincoln, A. E., & Quinn, T. P. (2018). Optimal foraging or surplus killing: selective consumption and discarding of salmon by brown bears. Behavioral Ecology, 30(1), 202-212. doi.org/10.1093/beheco/ary139
Lounibos, L. P., Makhni, S., Alto, B. W., & Kesavaraju, B. (2008). Surplus Killing by Predatory Larvae of Corethrella appendiculata: Prepupal Timing and Site-Specific Attack on Mosquito Prey. Journal of Insect Behavior, 21(2), 47-54. doi.org/10.1007/s10905-007-91...
Maupin, J. L. (2001). Superfluous killing in spiders: a consequence of adaptation to food-limited environments? Behavioral Ecology, 12(5), 569-576. doi.org/10.1093/beheco/12.5.569
McMahon, B. F., & Evans, R. M. (1992). Foraging Strategies of American White Pelicans. Behaviour, 120(1-2), 69-89. doi.org/10.1163/156853992x00219

[@MinuteEarth]

Supporters like you bring to bear more MinuteEarth videos. Want to become our Patreon or member on KZbin? Just visit www.patreon.com/MinuteEarth or click "JOIN". Thanks!

[@Realabigod]

Lol now I know bears waste food

[@Realabigod]

@Justin plays hi

[@TheNoblood12]

This nice and all but nothing will significantly change unless big cooperates start doing the change just for the change sake and not for “avoiding the risk of losing profits”

[@ultraapple3997]

Sory i can't

[@frostburnspirit9065]

Um.. Does living with your family/relatives count as "shared living space"?

[@razielhamalakh9813]

1:20 "And for the bear, time is money. Or really..." Me: "honey". MinuteEarth: "sal-money". You're killing me.

[@stegosaure8247]

And this is our sponsor for today i am kidding

[@tomato4300]

Lmao

[@tomato4300]

@@stegosaure8247 oKAy.

[@ab-ul1yz]

@@stegosaure8247 "your our app if wasting time smells fishy to you"

[@CytotoxinK]

I took -1 HP damage hearing that.

[@Alex-mw8qz]

I both love and hate the ending puns

[@usernametaken017]

so you're on a superposition?

[@ripjou2304]

You bear-ly know what to think

[@DefnitelyNotFred]

They are truly un-bear-able

[@PramkLuna]

You could say they're very punny people? I know I'm unBEARable, I'll see myself out...

[@ArmenianDude88]

As I love and hate myself

[@BioTheHuman]

Unlucky that my parents never said to me "aRe YoU a bEaR??" When didn't finish my food 🥴

[@internetuser8922]

I often got told as a child "you eat like a bird"

[@dh4913]

I usually ended up getting lectured about "food for the poors"

[@BioTheHuman]

@@internetuser8922 Even though, from the video they seems to full eat their prey 😅

[@BioTheHuman]

@@dh4913 yeah, that's a classic 🤣

[@mazedude5911]

Wow 🤩

[@samvodopianov9399]

Bears are also a keystone species. Without bears discarding fish, the whole ecosystem is affected. I forgot which study but one I saw concluded that in areas with salmon streams that had a loss of bears, the local ecosystem degraded.

[@illustriouschin]

They did an isotope study that found salmon nutrients absorbed by plants around the rivers and by herbivores, etc.

[@mr.boomguy]

And those where Salmon where left, either caught by bear or left after mating, the forests grew a lot more. I think it was in between 10-20%. I saw that in a documentary

[@Tugela60]

Pretty sure that is nonsense. Any fertilizer effect is extremely local and limited.

[@Coecoo]

@@Tugela60 It's not just about the corpse becoming literal dirt for plants. You also have a plethora of different categories of insects/birds/fungi/worms/scavenging animals getting fat paydays and those in turn feed/support other things, etc. Nature is complicated.

[@Tugela60]

@@Coecoo It is still trivial in the context of the overall ecosystem.

[@syndromic]

I'm guessing the "instincts honed generations of natural selection" would essentially amount to the bear's food preferences in this case? Bears would naturally think the fatty parts of a fish are delicious while the bony parts are disgusting? Similar to how humans prefer some foods over others? Or is there more to it that I'm missing?

[@brawmankerlexterminateurde860]

Mammals are the only type of animals who possesed more sense than any other animals

[@silversjohn7363]

My guess would be that it's simply a numbers thing , bears that min-maxed the most had on average more offspring that ether inherited, learned (or both) that type of behaviour, which over a long period of time led to a majority that engages in this type of behavour that outcompeted (outlived and outbred) those that didn't embrace the new meta.

[@Dalenthas]

Yeah, that's about right. It's the same instinct that makes kids not eat the crust of their pizza. Sure it tastes fine, but it's not as good as the rest of the pizza and it's way more effort to chew. So grab another slice instead.

[@bivcbmtgstgtssscqcrddgtrsm2257]

@@brawmankerlexterminateurde860 Crows, Ravens, and Parrots.

[@brawmankerlexterminateurde860]

@@bivcbmtgstgtssscqcrddgtrsm2257 birbs are more like us mammals with fur like feathers and scaly feet

[@AlienValkyrie]

omg all these puns are unbearable

[@FCBanton]

They really are "appawlling"

[@kanedaken9490]

I guess you just have to 'bear' with it

[@dirtypure2023]

Bear with me while I think of another pun to annoy you.

[@bridgetbat7422]

You three are un bear lievably redundant

[@Akif_Gaming123]

Those are beary good puns

[@CultistO]

This video missed/glossed over a really important point. The salmon are only in that particular part of the river for a short time, and the bears are limited by the volume they can fit in their stomachs. If they wait to digest the muscle, they miss the opportunity to stuff their gut with the more calorie dense food, meaning they've eaten less calories over all.

[@Limrasson]

Time is literally fat.

[@mahatipriyadarsini7459]

thanks for the extra info!

[@BionicPig95]

So then they gain a bunch of weight… Perhaps they should take one from the human playbook and try to cut back on calories.

[@joannamyers1268]

In the wild, animals go from pleasantly thin to dead in a matter of days. For an animal that needs fat stores to make it through the winter, it makes sense to stuff its face with as much calories as it can. Maybe humans should take a page out of the bear's book and hibernate.

[@BionicPig95]

@@joannamyers1268 be pleasantly plump and sleep a lot. I can get behind that.

[@Say_Tin]

Basically, when an animal can get all the prey it wants, it just eats the best parts from many kills rather than the whole body of a few kills because it doesn't need to waste time on the low-value parts when it can have all the best parts it wants.

[@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

So they are just like us!

[@TheSwauzz]

Thanks for the TL;DR. Not that I didn't understand the video, but you explained it even more simply and way, way faster, so I appreciate you.

[@KuK137]

@@TheSwauzz Are you 5? Because it's elementary school concept...

[@GermanTopGameTV]

Just like we humans do. You get the filet steak from the cow. It would take some serious economocial and societal crisis for you to consider eating the cows eyes, brain or hooves.

[@kingfishyiii5338]

@@KuK137 no one asked for your intel

[@Kuptain]

Human: "Stupid bear is wasting so much food! Incredible..." Also Human: "I only take the chicken wings."

[@gonzaloayalaibarre]

Literally wastes that precious brain.

[@caretakercat7176]

Ah, they don't know how delisiously unique every other chicken parts is. When you fry the chicken with out batter. Heart, liver, and intestine is my favorite.

[@user-cx6ir4zm9r]

Not here in the Philippines,every part is used. From feet to head,even intestines and other insides.

[@gtxhunter1720]

But they don't take just the wing. They carve the whole bird and sell it

[@KCCC326]

Humans are incredible at finding ways to use all parts of kills

[@ktefccre]

Its because mother bears can't tell their cubs "to finish their food because there are starving bears in Africa"

[@andrewmiller9834]

best comment ever 😂😂

[@marco21274]

I think you mean starving tigers in Africa! ;-)

[@ollllj]

Bears significantly positively impact the ecosystem of a river, by fertilizing a wide area around it with half eaten fish, and diversify the ecosystem by leaving food for scavengers/vultures/bacteria

[@marquizzo]

Yes, that’s what the video said.

[@la912]

In nature there's no such thing as waste apparently

[@Noah-ch7kt]

Flies are a big part of the fertilization

[@Geeksmithing]

Spoiler alert!

[@HansLemurson]

I remember reading an article identifying the Nitrogen isotopes in Kamchatkan forests, and determining that it all came from the ocean, and thus was brought by salmon.

[@pandabrain]

I can't believe that in 2021, none of these animals have smartwatches.

[@lerikhkl]

Undeniable proof that humans are more developed animals.

[@HanMestov]

@@lerikhkl some humans at least

[@amaliciousgoose]

@@HanMestov I - you roasted a good amount of the human population

[@Nysvarth]

They wouldn't be able to charge smartwatch batteries in the wild, so the standard wrist watch makes a good choice.

[@duck9770]

@@HanMestov low blow

[@shahirali8235]

You know I clicked on this video looking for some sort of complex evolutionary reason but instead got "How could a bear de-bone a fish with paws?"

[@TheSwauzz]

Well, it's technically an evolutionary answer, just not very complex.

[@danielyuan9862]

it was an evolutionary reason...

[@TheJB2D]

#TheRightToBearArmsNeglegtedThumbs

[@TheJB2D]

I'll show myself to the door now....

[@andresmartinezramos7513]

​@@TheJB2Dactually funny

[@tuckerricklefs4830]

2:14 The "Goldilocks" visual is great in so many ways.

[@unvergebeneid]

Ooooh, I was wondering what that meant!

[@AtrumNuntius]

Makes me wonder how much one would save on food from having a pet bear catch all your dinner since they don't eat the parts of the fish we do.

[@bluexroses414]

I'm sure there are scavenger animals that do exactly this! Just wait for the bear to wander away and go after the leftovers

[@XtreeM_FaiL]

None. Pet bears don't know how to fish.

[@urgendolkarlama1453]

@@XtreeM_FaiL true

[@rosenmartin914]

​@@bluexroses414 I don't know about bears, but I believe wolves and ravens worldwide can have a similar partnership: In return for localizing prey for the wolves, ravens get to eat parts of the carcass that wolves can't easily access

[@samiamrg7]

I remember hearing about a study which used a kind of dye to trace where the nutrients of discarded salmon end up and they can travel for miles just through plant roots.

[@auburneytuckerson2959]

One small error: Spotted Hyenas eat every part of their prey, leaving nothing left but a patch of blood.

[@karolinasoblinskyte1795]

And they eat other animals leftovers

[@auburneytuckerson2959]

@@karolinasoblinskyte1795 Exactly! Spotted hyenas are anything but wasteful, the complete opposite, actually.

[@shigekax]

Every part of every prey ?

[@auburneytuckerson2959]

@@shigekax yep

[@RandomRetallingsofRiggins]

well hyenas live in packs and the highest ranking in the pack will only eat the best part and the lowest are one who finish the bones so it not an error just different views on how they in the video there lookin at a single animals diet and what they eat your looking at the packs diet. also no animal can be wasteful everything will be eaten by microbes or not the nutrients will go into the ground

[@Ryan50Ryan]

I love that image of the animals looking at their watches.

[@huyphan7825]

Bear: "Must only eat fatty parts of fish to not waste energy and survive until the next day." The Common House Cat: "Haha tiny bones go cronch cronch"

[@Br3ttM]

I wonder if cats have thicker and tougher mouth and digestive tract to handle it. Camels have tough lips and mouths so they can eat cactus spines and all. Fish bones are more flexible, though, so just crunching them up might not work as well.

[@muradm7748]

@@Br3ttM I doubt it. Salmon meat is a lot tender than for example moose meat, and bears eat moose just fine. It is just cost/reward thing during salmon season (fish literally jumps to you mouth). And yes, cats have special bumps on their tongues to peel meat of bones.

[@NoorquackerInd]

It's official Wasting food is not uniquely human behavior

[@SgtSupaman]

@Lee , and you don't think scavenger animals are eating human leftovers? Have you never seen or heard of bugs, birds, rodents, and more rooting in trash cans/dumpsters/etc.? If humans are said to be wasting food, then it can be equally applied to bears. In both cases, none but the most desperate of their own species are going to even attempt eating the leftovers.

[@mrpickles-hb6zx]

No shit

[@illiacvie]

Thanks for the video, now I have very good reasons to only eat crispy fried chicken skins.

[@mrpickles-hb6zx]

No!

[@sourcream2648]

Maybe the bear should start watching nick di Giovanni, then he would know how to fillet a fish

[@learninginanutshellclassvi7830]

Haha

[@wizardsuth]

High grade tempered steel blades are difficult for bears to acquire, let alone use effectively.

[@frankabjh674]

@@wizardsuth stop laugh and leave no need to get technical on joke on youtube comment section

[@CrimsonEclipse]

It's just the bears way of sharing food with other animals.

[@mrpickles-hb6zx]

No.

[@devinnall2284]

So when I throw my hamburger out a window it's 'littering' but, when a bear does it it's okay.

[@dundee6402]

Depends if your hamburger falls on concrete or nature.

[@mrpickles-hb6zx]

She threw the burger out my car...

[@vrlojakgas4123]

This is the closest thing we can get to Sam o nella

[@dontworry4945]

immediately recognized the grateful bears at the end. great video

[@derp-construction3341]

Well made, and explained in a way that lets the viewer going understanding, rather than just facts.

[@uraniumglass0]

As always, love the drawings!

[@proagepro6501]

I can't Bear your puns

[@Cat_The_Phantom]

I can’t Bear you 😩😏

[@ashpjangde]

I love their animation and how they illustrate the characters and stories ❤️

[@berlinkopftcuster9217]

I loved that you placed your sponsor to the end of the video It didn't disturb the video

[@connorconnor2421]

2:20 GOLDILOCKS BEAR THE BEAR IS GOLDILOCKS NOT THE HUMAN

[@andy-kg5fb]

I had heard bear Grylls say that bears only eat the fatty parts of the fish and discard the rest. I always wondered why since

[@xarin42]

I remember seeing a SciShow video a while back about the trees also benefiting from the salmon waste.

[@blueberrychocolate4238]

Whoever did the animation, it’s adorable! Also, never thought I needed to know this before I watched the video.

[@lindsayhorne2868]

Great job explaining this, but you don’t even mention what this is called. To anyone who wants to Google or KZbin more info, this is called Optimal Foraging Theory. You can do little experiments yourself to really understand food handling time. We use upside down cups and Hershey kisses hidden underneath some of them. Every other second, you are allowed to look under another cup. If you find nothing, you keep looking for a cup with a kiss. When you find a kiss, you take it. The wrapper represents the time it takes between finding prey and putting it into your belly. During this “handling time” you aren’t allowed to look for more kisses under the cups.

[@bedantdahal2654]

That is something that I have been thinking for a while, thanks. I was beary curious about that thing, I used to bearly know about this. Minute Earth, Now I think everyone watches you just for the beary funny puns.

[@angrynoodletwentyfive6463]

your puns are un-bear-able

[@bedantdahal2654]

@@angrynoodletwentyfive6463 I bear-ly knew all of them, I to think for a beary long on time, my beary good bear puns aren't smething that you want to bear.

[@nusratparveen82]

Bear with me, but the puns are unbearable.

[@bismanaufa5618]

"Time for bear is money'' In indonesia bear is called 'beruang' We can divide to 'ber-uang' that mean 'with money' or 'have money'

[@LolaliciousSmiley]

This has the best description in youtube history.

[@ananas_anna]

Why is there so much focus on individual carbon footprints when most emissions come from large corporations? Even if everyone did as much as they could individually to reduce their footprint, there'd still be a climate change problem as long as we allow corporations to pollute as much as they want.

[@daniel6678]

Carbon footprint is an astroturfed scam

[@dirtypure2023]

Agreed. Also, we could easily approach carbon neutrality if every industrialized country would begin investing in and building new nuclear plants, specifically molten salt nuclear reactors, the kind that can use nuclear waste as fuel and have a near-zero risk of meltdowns like we've seen at Fukushima and Chernobyl. But environmental activists have made "nuclear" a bad word. Can't have clean, safe, abundant nuclear energy chipping away at those coal and natural gas profits, now can we? Ironically it's the activists who often inadvertently benefit the corporations they're supposedly so opposed to (can we say "controlled opposition"?). That said, I don't think the nature of climate change is what most people think it is. But I still strongly support a clean and healthy environment and biosphere.

[@Gabbyreel]

Putting away your own personal, realizable change because it’s a minority of emissions isn’t helpful. You can make a change also by supporting greener companies, since they produce products to be bought. In developed countries there already are stringent laws on pollution and emissions, so if you want to make a bigger change you can support local industry, even at the higher cost they charge. But that’s your call to make.

[@LordSnick]

You can just pay uor way out of it like the big companys do anyway...more money less polution...hahahahah

[@NerdyAardvark]

I just watched a video about this idea. You might find it interesting as well. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mKekq6GElLKDjbM

[@jefonespace5622]

Pun count:1000000000000

[@marcofilho]

I'm overwhelmed with that much puns. Great episode!

[@JungleScene]

Not covered by the video is also the big hidden benefit of bears littering salmon everywhere, and that is the health of the forests around them. Here in bc canada, something like 70-80% of the nitrogen in our soil in the forests and mountains comes from salmon. The salmon go to the sea to grow up, then bring back the nutrients from the ocean to the mountains. The forests that cover my province are only possible because the salmon bring the oceans abundance, and the bears spread it around and fertilize the hillsides near rivers and making the forests a much more liveable place for them. This feeds all the scavengers like birds and small mammals. Bears who have littered fish on the riverbanks have evolved to do so because it literally gave them forests to live in. The relationship between grizzlies and salmon is very very important to us and has been known by the first nations for millenia.

[@datosh18]

Stop the puns! I can't bear it anymore!

[@foxbatmc8457]

Effort making animations: 30% Effort in dialouges: 30% Effort in puns: 40%

[@foxbatmc8457]

@@mathusan ik i am actually learning animating so minuteearth if you wanna hire someone im your man

[@RarelyAChump]

Omg the bears holding paws and skipping at the end!!

[@crazycatlady39]

This is also why birds are notoriously messy eaters. While they focus on getting the most calorie bang for their buck, their meal leftovers will cycle nutrients back into the environment. By making a mess, such as dropping food, they give creatures in other areas access to food that might not otherwise be there (like the from the forest canopy to the forest floor, obviously). Nature doesn’t waste resources, it has creatures or natural processes to recycle everything it creates. The problem is man made waste does not necessarily behave in the same way as organic waste. A paper bag would still rot, but a plastic bag-not so much. But to alot of people they are close enough to the same thing. It’s just really easy to gloss over an awful lot of information without even realizing it in the name of convenience.

[@Q269]

Note to others: your personal carbon footprint is miniscule; if you feel like being active, take an activists role, it can have a multiplicative effect.

[@Q269]

Don't forget you can just look at the site though; engagement (clicking at least 3+ pages on their page) will benefit your favorite KZbinr too...

[@uncanny3637]

Lol can't wait for 2 people to start a infamous flame wars here and the listeners ignoring the guy who tell them to stop fighting and just respect each others opinion while the party of both sides who follow the respect guy but join the toxic arguments making long chains of text worth of 9 novel volumes.

[@alexanderx33]

It's far more important to fully understand the system than it is to promote an opinion on the subject.This is frequently true with complicated subjects. Be a nerd, not a politician. Striving in the wrong direction can often hurt more than it helps and wastes alot of effort in the process. Never stop testing your assumptions.

[@Q269]

@@alexanderx33 for sure, my dude. That's why I say *if you're looking to take an active role* your results can be multiplied. The knee-jerk desire, to pay $5/no & listen to a company tell you how you're saving the planet, is not as helpful.

[@uncanny3637]

@@Q269 That's some dedication for your role dude.

[@kossiviesse9807]

Before watching I’m guessing this is about Optimal Foraging Theory

[@iwersonsch5131]

This 4 minute video can bearly hold this many bear puns.

[@kainigwon5433]

1:21 Awwww. That bear looking at his watch looks so cute. Even that watch, from our perspective looks like this -> ☹

[@pikachu-fe7tx]

"catching fish can be a real bear" ROLL CREDITS

[@patu8010]

I hadn't even heard of that idiom before. I was like, are they just making stuff up to make a pun

Ammount of bear puns was to much for me

[@MinuteEarth]

You couldn’t bear it?

@@MinuteEarth good one :)

[@The_Curiousgirl_Tamil]

I wondered about this while watching 'MAN vs WILD' 😄. Thanks for the answer

[@lyrablack8621]

I was literally just thinking about this!!

[@dirtypure2023]

I honestly always assumed they just at the bones. This is quite surprising to me.

[@VladTchompalov]

Thinking of a pun... Bear with me...

[@wuziq]

this was really nicely illustrated

[@alex_zetsu]

Now that you bring up the bone problem, how do fish eat other fish without choking on the bones? Some fish do eat much of their prey instead of just the fatty bits. But unlike hands of paws, fins don't seem to offer much way to pick out the meat from the bone.

[@Potato-km4zg]

Do they know African kids are starving?

[@brawmankerlexterminateurde860]

They dont give a shit about them

[@i_am_aladeen]

Bear with me: That title is unbearable. "These" should be "some". When I only saw the thumbnail and read the title, I had no idea what bears you were talking about. The title reminds me of those click-hunters with low content videos. Anyway... Great video as always! 9/10. One point redacted due to the reasons mentioned above.

[@iljagaimovic9166]

Most people can't even take out bones from the fish by themselves, and are judging the bear 😂

[@malachitehawk6337]

0:30 that was not an image I thought I needed.

[@demonknight0412]

Did you just do 4 bear puns in one 4 minute video, and I accually like it?

[@M.Datura]

I'm glad this has been recognised enough that it's a vid with nearly 1m views.

[@lalitpardhi1705]

Nothing goes to waste in nature. Loved you video ❤️

[@danman6612]

Bears are not the only animals that surplus kill, many species (including humans) do it. Why? For the thrill of it (i.e. adrenaline). All vertebrates have adrenaline, which means all mammals (including bears) have adrenaline. In a predator/prey situation; the predator needs adrenaline to get the energy it needs to catch and kill its prey, whereas the prey needs adrenaline to get the energy it needs to run away. Adrenaline, like any drug, can be addictive, hence the expression "adrenaline junkie". While it's nice to think that a fox killed 70 penguins in 3 days (and only eating a few of them) was simply because he's "providing food for his family" or "saving food to eat later", or a cat playing with a mouse to death is simply "honing its skills", or a dolphin kills baby porpoises because it's "competing for resources"; the truth is that these animals surplus kill because they can, and because they enjoy it.

[@rogerparadis5182]

There was like 20 bear puns in that vid

[@albinoman13bt]

I'm not sure what bears you've seen, but the head is usually the last thing to go if they eat it. They pin the head down, peel off the skin and eat it, then usually the guts, then they work from the tail to the head if they eat all of it. The bones don't bother them at all. They don't leave the guts. At the time of year they catch salmon the salmon are swimming home to mate. Bears want the eggs and sperm sacks because by the time their skin turns red it's the only thing left with a lot of calories.

[@MrRu8iXF4n]

The amount of bear puns is un-bear-able

[@skurrvie3928]

I've also seen some video where they say that they spread fish around in the forrest so that what grows will be enriched with omega 3.

[@evilsharkey8954]

I heard that discarded salmon bits represent a pretty significant amount of fertilizer for trees near rivers.

[@CarthagoMike]

I can barely bear the bear puns.

[@rolandholtgen8181]

In Canada i was told that the huge amount of salmon thrown away by bears is essential to fertilize the local forests. Otherwise the landscape would look different.

[@stanleycoleman]

@2:14 A bear dressed up as Goldilocks feels like that SpongeBob episode about Opposite Day.

[@kocklol]

never thought kermit would explain to me why bears waste food

[@hitachiuchihamagicwand2776]

Now I don’t feel so bad when I throw away the crusts on pizza. My parents used to shame me for it.

[@MrBelles104]

Makes sense. Like Minecraft Saturation. It is not worth filling the food bar if the saturation is low. It is like how much food you can store. Filling your food is not the gaol. It's filling it with the longest lasting food.

[@1TieDye1]

I love the full spider lol

[@a_paperweight3902]

1:50 well also the way they catch it is to put it in their mouth so...

[@user-zu8vc5ef6w]

If bears had a direct competitor who also could capitalize on bears throwing food this trait would be bear's undoing

[@gouravp.3851]

Alternate title: Why do bears behave like humans?

[@KarmeshMadhavi]

Imagine a Apex Predator is watching the time while catching you. YOU: "Wait wait wait! Let me tell you something, Let me tell you something"

[@LukaTheGod]

the amount of puns in this video is un-bear-able

[@utkarshkothimbire1484]

Thanks a lot for making this video and giving us more insights about Mother Nature.

[@Pablito-uv3wc]

MinuteEarth is like the dollar store they say MINUTE EARHT but it’s actually 3

[@Iamreal11xingping]

Bear and chef best combo

[@cirecrux]

They only eat the skin and brains??? Bears are aliens confirmed

[@evanharrison4054]

Humans: "Waste not, want not." Bears: "Waste, want."

[@diegoreckholder945]

OK, but the bear calculating meme...!!! 😂😂😂 🐻

[@falxie_]

It's interesting how nature balances itself out

[@jkp2319]

Plus, bears are smart enough to remember where they dumped a bunch of fish and big enough to chase off any other animals. So, if it's still hungry at the end of the day it still has access to much of that meat.

[@ThunderStruck94660]

Cool explanation.

[@joshuachew1459]

Was expecting a "bare necessities " pun at the end though

[@TheTerranInformed]

I love the image of the stylish orca with the watch! Just needs a top hat and a monocle!

[@NoahSpurrier]

The discarded fish are also an important part of fertilizing trees.

[@chiefschillaxn1781]

redwood mycelium network distribute the nutrients left over from bears miles away. we have to remember what giving back to the earth means which is often regarded as waste.

[@SKMcorporation]

Bears are basically eating best pieces from box of chocolate and then opening an new box.

[@KannikCat]

I never knew I needed to see a bear-Spock until today. :D Also 100% in love with the high pun quotient in this video! (Along with all the great science, of course!)