The polar bear is being endangered by the actions of humans and global warming. Polar bears were actually the first vertebrate species to be put on the list by the U.S. Endangered Species Act as threatened by extinction, mostly due to global warming. The listing occurred in 2008 because of ongoing habitat loss for polar bears. The same arctic sea ice in which they live and depend on to hunt their prey, which is almost exclusively seals.
The rising temperatures in the world and the world’s oceans are resulting in the sea ice to disappear for longer and longer periods of time during the summer, which leaves polar bears with fewer amounts of time to hunt. This is a big problem worldwide and has caused the Endangered Species Act to list polar bears as threatened everywhere in the world. Polar bears can only survive in areas where the oceans are able to freeze, which allows them to hunt seals who are living under and on the frozen polar ice caps.<br>
Orbiting satellites around the Earth have been able to capture the seasonal extent of sea ice since 1979, and the results are very bad in terms of the future of the polar bears. The minimum extent that the sea ice occurs in is around mid-September and during these months, new records lows being set for this minimum is now a regular event. The trend over the last couple of years has been for the last summer sea ice in the Arctic occur farther and farther from shore, requiring polar bears to swim increasingly long distances in order to reach the ice. Even worse, the remaining sea ice is over deep and unproductive waters that have less prey for the polar bears.
In the Hudson Bay, polar bears are now forced to spend their summer months on shore when the ice has melted and there is no ice platform for them to hunt seals. Resulting in the polar bears having to fast for longer and longer months. Fortunately, Hudson Bay polar bears have somehow been able to catch enough seals during the winter months to satisfy them during the period that they’re on-shore. However, this situation is changing fast because of climate change. Now, the ice is melting earlier than usual and forming up later, which leaves an ever-shorter period for polar bears to hunt. The Hudson Bay polar bears are now skinnier, have fewer cubs, the cubs they do have don’t normally even survive to adulthood, and the interval of time between each successful litters is increasing. Male bears are even starting to eat cubs.
What is seen in Hudson Bay is beginning to occur now in northern populations. This pattern is especially occurring on the North Coast of Alaska but appears to be the problem worldwide. The increasing gap between open water and the shore is creating longer swims for polar bears. During this long swim, both cubs and adult bears have suffered and died. Also, development in ocean floor exploration and oil extraction in open waters that were previously sealed by frozen ice is growing. This brings people, disturbance, and potentially disastrous oil spills to the arctic polar bear habitat.
However, polar bear populations aren’t anything to be worried about right now. Instead, we should be worried about polar bear populations in the future, because at the rate that we are warming our globe, polar bears are surely soon to be extinct. We know that polar bear populations are declining, it’s just a matter of what rate they disappear at that’s up to us.
Polar bears need our help and protection to ensure a future for their species. The best way you can help polar bears is by reducing your carbon emissions to help control global warming.
Here is a graph that shows the change in polar bear populations throughout time as they were endangered from declining sea ice before some conservation efforts were shown. Polar bear populations still continue to drop due to the ignorance of humans even though we already know this to be a worldwide problem. Poor tracking of the Polar Bears in the Arctic has also lead to somewhat inaccurate assumptions of the population levels, however, polar bears are projected to decrease 30% by 2050.
Citation: (February, 14, 2014). Polar bear population now officially 13,071-24,238 says IUCN polar bear specialist group. Retrieved May 22, 2017 from https://polarbearscience.com/2014/02/14/polar-bear-population-now-officially-13071-24238-says-iucn-polar-bear-specialist-group/
