The Mariner's Handbook (NP100) I eventually found to be interesting reading...sheesh the things you will read when bored on watch! Anyway, up until around the early 1980's in the section covering Arctic survival there was a very important reference to the dangers of eating polar bear liver (high vitamin A content or some such)...although it never gave any hints on how to kill the animal first!
The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist by E. Billings, April 1856, Volume I, Number II (page 111) has this reference:
“One of the most singular facts relative to the polar bear is, that its liver is to a great degree poisonous, a circumstance unknown in almost every other animal. Three of Barent'z sailors were very much injured by eating of it; and Capt. Ross, in his late Arctic voyage, verified the observation by experiment.”
Even though there is no longer mention of this in the current Mariner's Handbook, I believe that the advice is still relevant today.
Last edited by Old Bakelite; July 6th, 2009 at 07:02 AM.
Reason: Additional text
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