"Obviously it takes a very large quantity of eggs to satisfy an animal as big as a polar bear, especially one with cubs."The impact is that entire nesting areas are being stripped bare of eggs and young, with potentially dire consequences for the geese and wildlife tourism."The bears could threaten the fortunes of the Svalbard barnacle geese population; there were just 300 birds in the 1940s, but now up to 30,000 visit Scotland each winter. The turnaround was the result of a ban on hunting, work on monitoring and the provision of a safe habitat for the geese at Caerlaverock, the WWT said.