There is potential for this to prevent starvation under the scenarios that Molnar put out there," she said. "However, it does depend on how much energy they spend getting this food."
Molnar hasn't looked at the analysis in depth, but he's skeptical, given trends in this population of polar bears.
"The population has declined quite substantially between 1995 and 2005," he said.
"We know that their body conditions are getting worse. They are getting thinner. The real question is not, Can you put land-based feeding into the models or not? The real question is, Why aren't the bears eating enough to prevent declines?