Impact Of Global Warming On Polar Bears – New science is shedding more light on the recent controversy over the large numbers of predators affected by melting sea ice.
Millions of people have seen the sad videos of polar bears wrapped in skeletal white fur. The film, shot by Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier of the non-profit Sea Legacy and published in National Geographic in early December, sparked a debate about what scientists know and don’t know about the effects of global warming. a world of polar bears. Without seeing a bear in the film – thinking it is dead – it is impossible to know exactly what made the man sick, but now scientists have published new results that sheds more light on the dangers to the entire species.
Impact Of Global Warming On Polar Bears
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – More polar bears may go hungry as sea ice melts, a new study warns. They are high-energy animals, burning 12,325 calories per day, according to a unique metabolic study of wild bears published Thursday in the journal Science.
Polar Bears Could Go Extinct By 2100 Due To Global Warming, Study Says
“Our study shows that polar bears are completely dependent on seals,” said author Anthony Pagano, a wildlife biologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS).
Polar bears are almost entirely dependent on a high-calorie diet of seals. To reduce energy expenditure, bears still hunt for hours and seal the animals’ conical breathing holes in the sea ice. When the seal comes out for air, the bear stands on its hind legs and drags its two front paws into its head. Then the bear stretched its neck and dragged it on the ice.
“They are more successful at this than other hunting methods,” Pagano said. This is why the melting of sea ice in the Arctic threatens the survival of polar bears.
A polar bear watches its cubs in Hudson Bay, Manitoba, Canada. The coast is famous for polar bears, but their numbers are declining.
Climate Change Could Make Giving Birth Riskier For Polar Bears In Northern Alaska
A polar bear watches its cubs in Hudson Bay, Manitoba, Canada. The coast is famous for polar bears, but their numbers are declining.
Climate change is causing the Arctic to warm faster than anywhere else, with sea ice shrinking by 14% per decade. Even today, in the harsh Arctic winter, satellites show a sea ice extent of about 770,000 square miles, less than the 1981 to 2010 average (ie, more than Alaska and California combined). Ice breaks up earlier in the late spring and grows later in the fall, forcing bears to expend a lot of energy walking or swimming long distances to break through the remaining ice. arrive Or they stay on the ground longer, spend more time in the summer and grow faster in the fall to shed seals caught in the spring.
Pagano’s study involved nine female bears captured last April in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, a time when many seals are usually around. The bear was wearing a GPS jacket with a video camera to record each sighting. Blood and urine samples were also collected. They were caught again eight to 11 days later. That’s when a bear moved 155 miles. Blood and urine samples are collected again, and videos and other data are downloaded.
The data showed that bears were active about 35 percent of the time and rested the rest of the time, but they burned 12,325 calories per day, mostly from body stores. That’s about 60 percent higher than previous research estimates. The video shows that none of the four women managed to get a single stamp. Measurements showed that the animals lost 10 percent or more of their body weight.
Climate Change Is Already Starving Polar Bears And May Wipe Most Of Them Out By 2100
One bear lost nearly 44 pounds (including lean muscle) in 10 days. The bear even jumped into the sea and tried to catch a seal swimming past, but was unsuccessful. “Maybe she was desperate,” Pagano said.
“It’s very educational,” said Steven Amstrup, chief scientist at Polar Bears International, who was not involved. “It turns out that polar bears are like big cats – lions and tigers – carnivores with a high energy metabolism,” said Amstrup.
As solitary hunters, bears are similar to tigers, except they are twice as large, with some weighing up to 1,100 pounds. However, they are particularly vulnerable to almost complete dependence on one species.
Amstrup, a former U.S. Geological Survey polar bear expert, said if these results hold up, they show that the loss of sea ice could have a greater impact on polar bears than previously thought. Amstrup’s own 2010 study predicted that melting sea ice would reduce the world’s bear population by two-thirds by 2050, to fewer than 10,000 animals.
Climate Change Fills Polar Bears With Toxins
The best estimates suggest that there are between 20,000 and 30,000 polar bears in total, belonging to 19 different groups, or populations, spread across the United States, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia. Four of the numbers are considered declining. Bears in the Beaufort Sea are the best studied animals, and their numbers have decreased by 40 percent in the last ten years. Five numbers are considered stable and the other numbers are not known enough to judge. (Learn how scientists are trying to find polar bears across a vast area of Russia.)
Polar bears are considered endangered in the United States and listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature because their marine habitats are threatened by climate change.
Andrew Drocher, a Canadian polar bear expert and professor at the University of Alberta, said that although this is only a 10-day picture, research has proven that polar bears are not born to walk. They are not efficient walkers, but because of their high-energy diet, they can cover distances of up to 95,000 square miles, Derocher said in an interview.
Bears can lose weight quickly, but they can also gain it back quickly if they can seal it. “I’ve seen a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) man take 100 kilograms (200 pounds) of citrate per meal,” he said.
How The Effects Of Climate Change In Arctic Canada Are Shrinking Polar Bears
The longer a bear climbs on the ice to hunt, the more weight it loses. Eventually, they begin to lose muscle mass, affecting their chances of hunting successfully, which can cause falls. As the sea ice falls, bears are swimming more, DeRocher said.
A new study published in Polar Biology found that although polar bears can swim long distances, they use more energy than walking.
“As sea ice melts around the clock, polar bears must swim more and more to catch up with seal populations,” Brigham Young University biologist Brian Griffin said in a news release. Griffin covered 426 miles in nine days, lost 22% of her weight and, to make matters worse, lost the baby she had just started traveling with.
Griffin said increased swimming could cause smaller bears to reduce their reproductive rates and even increase their mortality risk — a situation already seen around western Hudson Bay and south of the Beaufort Sea.
Climate Change May Kill Off Nearly All Polar Bears By 2100
There is no question, Amstrup said, that more bears will die of starvation as the sea ice recedes. “I don’t know if the poor bear in the video was hungry. “I know that the only solution for the long-term survival of the polar bear is to fight climate change. “
Fjords are melting, snow is rising, and wildlife is disappearing. Our photographers documented the effects of climate change over four seasons in Svalbard, Norway.
These powerful animals spend a lot of time searching for food near people. Mobile radar units can prevent very rare incidents.
A year later, Cristina Mittermeier explains what she and her team were trying to achieve with this depressing image. “Climate Change Poster”: One study predicts polar bears will be dead within 80 years. Polar bears have a “small chance” of survival. In addition to “small numbers” in high Arctic regions, a study found
Critical Analysis: Why We Need To Put An End To Climate Change And It’s Negative Effects On The Arctic & It’s Polar Bears
Polar bears could become extinct by the end of the century as climate change shrinks Arctic sea ice, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Although the study does not predict that all polar bears will become extinct by 2100, it is estimated that 13 of the 19 polar bear species in the Arctic, with around 80% likely die of starvation and reproductive failure. The researchers said that, based on current rates of ice loss, the estimate is “likely to be conservative” and predicted that some subpopulations of the soon to disappear.
“If global temperatures continue to rise to current levels, the likelihood of polar bears surviving anywhere in the world but the Arctic is slim,” said Peter Molnar, a professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough. the author told the New York Times.This is despite a slight decrease in emissions.
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