Polar Bear Video Instead Of The Real Thing
Will watching a polar bear video be the only reminder of these magnificent animals in the not too distant future? Some scientists and organizations such as the WWF think so. They speculate that if global warming continues at the current rate then the species will die out because their habitat is being destroyed.
It has to do with more of the sea ice melting at a quicker rate in the Arctic due to the increase in temperature caused by global warming. The bears need the sea ice to be able to stay out at sea and hunt for seal which is their main source of food. Less ice means their hunting season becomes a lot shorter and they become hungrier during the increasingly longer summer season when they can't catch seals and have to forage for food. The seals can outswim them so they have to rely on pack ice to ambush them at a breathing hole or nesting site (On average, a polar bear eats about 50 seals per winter). In Churchill, the bears are arriving earlier than normal. In the past a few would show up in September and the bulk in October but in the 2006 season the first appeared in July and they have been in the area ever since. There are a larger number of thin and hungry bears around in Hudson Bay as the winter season is at least one month shorter now than it was a decade ago and the bears have to wait longer until the ice freezes up again for them to hunt. This is causing the human/bear dynamic in Churchill to worsen because the bears are becoming more aggressive in their search for food and they are in the area much longer. They regularly break into houses and other buildings to scavenge and even kill dogs and cats for a meal. There have been many serious polar bear attacks on humans and two deaths since 1970. Polar bears are the early warning system that global warming is here and getting worse, like the canary in the coal mine warning miners of poisonous gases. The effects are more pronounced in the extreme north and southern parts of the globe because relatively small changes in temperature have widespread effects on the ice. We need to heed the warning and take action if we want to save the polar bear (and a myriad of other species including ourselves eventually) from extinction.
The polar bear video clip below highlights the growing global warming problem in relation to the bears and what should be done about it (take a look at the size of the teeth on the bear the scientists immobilize).
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