Polar bear meat is technically edible and has been eaten by Indigenous Arctic communities for thousands of years, but it carries serious health risks that make it dangerous if not handled correctly. Between parasitic infections, vitamin A poisoning from the liver, and mercury contamination, polar bear meat requires more caution than almost any other wild game.
Trichinella Infection Is the Primary Risk
The biggest immediate danger from eating polar bear meat is trichinellosis, a parasitic infection caused by roundworm larvae embedded in the muscle tissue. Roughly one in three polar bears carries Trichinella parasites. A large review of studies found an average infection rate of 39%, while a study of bears in northeastern Greenland documented larvae in 32% of animals tested, averaging about 9 larvae per gram of muscle.
Those numbers matter because trichinellosis in humans causes nausea, diarrhea, fever, and muscle pain within days of eating infected meat. Severe cases can lead to heart inflammation and neurological problems. The larvae are killed by thorough cooking, but polar bear meat is dense and can look cooked on the outside while still harboring live parasites inside. Freezing, which kills Trichinella in pork, does not reliably work on Arctic species of the parasite. The strain found in polar bears can survive freezing temperatures indefinitely, which makes sense given where these animals live.
Inuit and other Arctic peoples have long known about this risk. Traditional preparation methods account for it, but outbreaks of trichinellosis from bear meat still occur in Arctic communities, often when meat is eaten raw, dried, or undercooked. Any polar bear meat must reach a high internal temperature throughout, not just at the surface, to be considered safe from this parasite.
The Liver Can Be Lethal
Polar bear liver contains extraordinarily high concentrations of vitamin A, enough to cause acute poisoning in a single meal. Arctic explorers learned this the hard way. Early accounts from expeditions describe crews developing severe headaches, nausea, peeling skin, blurred vision, and drowsiness after eating polar bear liver.
Acute vitamin A toxicity causes a distinctive set of symptoms: intense headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, skin peeling and cracking, vision changes including blurred or double vision, and in serious cases, liver damage and altered consciousness. In infants and children, the skull bones can soften. The condition resolves once you stop consuming the source of vitamin A, but in extreme doses, the damage to the liver and brain can be permanent or fatal.
A polar bear’s liver can contain 15,000 to 30,000 units of vitamin A per gram. For context, the recommended daily intake for an adult is around 3,000 units total. Even a small bite of liver could deliver a toxic dose. Indigenous Arctic communities have understood this danger for generations and universally avoid eating the liver, sometimes burying it to prevent dogs from consuming it.
Mercury and Chemical Contaminants
Polar bears sit at the top of the Arctic food chain, which means pollutants accumulate in their tissues through a process called biomagnification. Mercury is the contaminant of greatest concern. A 2024 study analyzing polar bears from six subpopulations across the Canadian Arctic found that mercury concentrations in muscle tissue generally fell within consumption guidelines set by Health Canada. However, the picture isn’t entirely reassuring.
Using the strictest safety thresholds set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, roughly 13% of people eating polar bear meat at typical consumption levels could exceed the safe weekly intake for methylmercury. For the most sensitive populations (children, infants, and women of childbearing age), about 0.2% would exceed the lower safety threshold based on the highest mercury concentrations measured. These numbers apply to the small quantities traditionally consumed by Inuit communities, averaging under 10 grams per week. Anyone eating larger portions would face proportionally higher exposure.
Persistent organic pollutants like PCBs and pesticide residues have also been detected in polar bear tissues, though many samples fall below detectable levels. These chemicals lack established safety thresholds, making the risk harder to quantify.
Legal Restrictions on Hunting and Consumption
In the United States, polar bears are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Only Alaska Natives who live along the coast can legally hunt polar bears for subsistence purposes. Non-Native individuals cannot legally hunt, buy, or sell polar bear meat in the U.S. The law does permit importing polar bear parts (excluding internal organs) from legal sport hunts conducted in Canada, but this requires a permit and applies to trophies rather than meat for consumption.
In Canada, polar bear hunting is restricted to Indigenous peoples and, in some territories, to guided sport hunts with strict quotas. The meat from these hunts typically stays within Indigenous communities. In most of the world, international trade in polar bear products is regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which classifies polar bears as a vulnerable species.
For the vast majority of people, the question of eating polar bear meat is academic. You would need to be in a remote Arctic community with legal access to a harvested bear, and even then, preparing the meat safely requires knowledge that most people don’t have.
How It Has Been Eaten Safely
Indigenous communities that eat polar bear meat follow practices developed over centuries. The liver is never eaten. The meat is cooked thoroughly, with particular attention to ensuring heat penetrates all the way through. Some traditional preparations involve long boiling, which helps ensure parasites are killed throughout the cut.
The muscle meat itself, when properly cooked and consumed in moderate quantities, provides a high-calorie, high-protein food source that has sustained Arctic populations in one of the harshest environments on Earth. The fat is also used and is generally lower in contaminants than the liver or kidneys. But “properly cooked” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Given the freeze-resistant Trichinella strain, the extreme vitamin A content in the organs, and the mercury levels that climb with portion size, polar bear meat demands a level of care and knowledge that goes well beyond typical wild game preparation.