So following the good news last week about the removal of
the Giant Panda from the endangered species list there has been more news on
bears this week. One of their distant relatives, the polar bear has been proven
to be struggling in each of it’s 19 sub-populations .
This is because the effects global warming is having on the
arctic sea ice, which is critical to a bears survival. The study from The
Cryosphere showed that total number of ice-covered days are declining between
7-19 days per decade (1979-2014) and that the spring melt is occurring 3-9 days
earlier per decade. Although these numbers don’t appear to be all that large
they are in fact very significant, as bears use the sea ice to hunt, breed and many other life processes. When the
ice isn’t present most bears will go through a period of starvation and as
these periods are increasing more and more bears are struggling to make it
through the leaner months. The lack of ice will also put strains on their reproduction as not only limiting there time but the knock on effect of extended starvation will lead to less success in breeding for many individuals.
Check out the paper here! (download the pdf for free)
Thanks for reading!
check out this video from BBC
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