How to Tame Polar Bears in Minecraft
The polar bear is a very recognizable animal. After all, their fur looks white even though it has no white pigment, thus enabling them to blend in very well with their Arctic environment. Unfortunately, climate change means that polar bears are losing the sea ice that they use as seal-hunting platforms. This is bad for them because they are near-exclusive meat eaters that feed on various species of seals for the most part. Meanwhile, this is bad for us because polar bears have been venturing further and further south, which is a serious issue when starving polar bears are much less discriminate about what they hunt. On top of that, they are notorious for having no fear of humans. As such, it is no wonder that polar bears are a subject of so much interest to such a wide range of people.
How Can You Tame Polar Bears in Minecraft?
Minecraft is a game that lets interested individuals tame a wide range of animals. This includes some that would make very poor candidates for said effort in real life. For proof, look no further than the fact that Minecraft lets interested individuals tame polar bears. Chances are good that interested individuals can guess that polar bears can be found in Minecraft’s snowy biomes. They are a bit unusual in that they can be found in groups of one to four animals even though their real life counterparts are solitary animals save under certain exceptions. Minecraft has both adult polar bears and baby polar bears. As such, some interested individuals might be tempted to go for the latter rather than the former. However, that is a very bad idea because its polar bears tend to be much more aggressive when there are cubs in tow. Due to this, the best candidates for taming are adult polar bears that are out and about on their own. This is particularly true since other polar bears in the vicinity will join in if a fight starts up for whatever reason. Adult polar bears can do a fair amount of damage and take a fair amount of damage, meaning that being ganged up on by an entire group of them can be a very dangerous scenario unless people are well-prepared for a fight.
If interested individuals want to tame a polar bear, they are going to need to catch some fish. In turn, this means that they will need a fishing rod, which can be acquired in a number of ways. For example, the player can just make one using some sticks as well as some string. Alternatively, the player can either steal them from villagers, loot them from chests, and loot them from castles. Amusingly, it is possible to fish up fishing rods, though if people are fishing up fishing rods, it seems safe to say that they have no need to look for fishing rods. In any case, once the player has their fishing rod, they should fish in water that is exposed to either sunlight or moonlight while the skies are clear because both of those things will reduce the wait between fish. If they are feeling particularly impatient, they should enchant their fishing rod as well because that is another way to reduce the wait between fish.
Minecraft’s polar bears have a preference for salmon, presumably because Minecraft lacks seals. As such, people might have to wait a while until they can fish up enough salmon for their polar bear-taming expedition. Amusingly, it is possible to get salmon as a drop from polar bears. Due to this, if they prefer collecting their salmon in a more exciting way, there is the option of fighting polar bears until they get enough drops. Please note that the player should prepare well by collecting a lot of salmon. Even if they don’t use everything on taming a polar bear, salmon has other uses such as taming cats and bribing dolphins. Once the player has enough salmon, they should approach a suitable candidate for taming so that they can start feeding salmon to the polar bear. They need to do this again and again until hearts appear above the polar bear, which indicate that the polar bear has been tamed. After that, the player will be able to ride the polar bear, use the polar bear to attack, and use the polar bear to defend.
Why Haven’t Polar Bears Been Domesticated in Real Life?
Of course, video games are video games, meaning that what is possible in them isn’t necessarily what is possible in real life. Bears do get tamed from time to time. However, there is a reason why people go for less dangerous species of bear than the polar bear. For that matter, while the idea of riding bears is something that comes up a lot in fiction, the chances of bears being domesticated enough for that aren’t very good to say the least. Theoretically speaking, it might be possible for humans to domesticate bears given enough time, will, and resources. Animals can change a great deal with sufficient generations, particularly when something is exerting enormous pressure for certain characteristics. In practice, it is hard to imagine anyone coming up with that much time, will, and resources because bears have so many disadvantages as a candidate for domestication.
For example, bears are solitary animals for the most part, with the major exceptions being mating bears and mother bears raising baby bears. This is a huge issue because domestication seems to become easier when the candidate for domestication has some kind of social structure that can be co-opted for human benefit. Similarly, bears take years to grow to sexual maturity. They aren’t quite as bad as, say, elephants, which take more than a decade’s time to reach sexual maturity. Still, this means that it is much more difficult to shape them when compared with faster-growing mammals. Having said that, the single biggest issue might be how dangerous bears can be even when they are on their own, which means an increase in the amount of resources needed to take care of them. Never mind maintaining enough bears for a breeding population. Summed up, it seems safe to say that domesticated bears won’t be happening unless genetic engineering sees some huge leaps in the future.
