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Article posted Thursday, May 29, 2014 3:51pm

Two research colleagues at the American Museum of Natural History reported that polar bears are beginning to change their diets. One researcher was Linda Gormezano and the other was her dog, Quinoa, a male Shepherd Dog. Gormezano taught the dog to sniff out polar bear feces. When Quinoa finds a pile of bear feces, he sits and waits for Gormezano to arrive and she rewards him with a tug of war or throwing a ball for him to fetch. During the study Quinoa sniffed out 1,500 piles of bear droppings, which Gormezano analyzed for their content. She found that the polar bears she studied are beginning to shift their diet from seals and the like to snow geese, caribou and goose eggs. (Science, Feb. 7, 2014)