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A terrifying scene of a male polar bear chasing and cannibalising a young cub in front of his mother was captured in a video by science reporters during their expedition on Canada's Baffin Island in summer last year.

The grizzly side of the bears, known to the natives of the Arctic, surfaces in late summer and autumn when there are few seals, due to their seasonal disappearance.

"One of the only things left to eat is, in fact, cubs of various ages," said Ian Stirling, a biologist at the University of Alberta, National Geographic reported . "The footage itself is quite rare, but the event probably isn't."

As male polar bears are bigger and more aggressive, eating cubs is an easy option compared to foraging for food. Females might be feeling hungrier as they would be nursing their cubs, but try to avoid that option.

Amazingly, not only polar bears but even hippopotamuses, tiger salamanders, sloth bears and a number of other animals tend to follow this route, reports the Daily Mail.

It is possible that climate change is leading to this situation, followed by the record of dives that polar bears are taking to search for food. But other experts claim that there has been no evidence to prove this.

"In the long term, the populations of these species of food for the polar bears are going to decline," said Peter Ewins, leader of Arctic conservation for the World Wide Fund for Nature. "So it's not going to be a persisting source of high fat for the polar bears."

YouTube/National Geographic