Wildlife and global warming Navigating the Arctic Meltdown Polar Bears

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Defenders of Wildlife; Canadian Wildlife Service polar bear; Arctic; Canada; Hudson; Hudson Bay; Beaufort Sea; Global warming; Sea ice; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.183.2899; http://www.defenders.org/resources/publications/programs_and_policy/science_and_economics/global_warming/navigating_the_arctic_meltdown_polar_bear.pdf

Conflict, starvation and cannibalism. These bleak words evocative of an adventure tale set in the steamy tropics actually describe polar bears facing the loss of their sea-ice feeding grounds, perhaps by as early as 2040, as the Arctic climate rapidly warms. “During 24 years of research on polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea region of northern Alaska and 34 years in northwestern Canada, we have not seen other incidents of polar bears stalking, killing and eating other polar bears, ” says scientist Steven Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center. Signs of trouble in the polar bear’s normally frigid home are numerous, varied and compelling. Survival rates for firstyear polar bear cubs fell from 0.61 cubs between 1967 and 1989 to only 0.25 cubs per adult female between 1990 and 2006. First-year cubs and adult male polar bears are getting smaller, apparently from food shortages. Smaller, weaker cubs have a tough time surviving harsh arctic conditions. Recent populations have fallen by hundreds of bears, especially in the Beaufort Sea and western Hudson Bay regions. In autumn 2004, observers encountered four polar bears that drowned trying to swim between shore and the increasingly distant pack ice. Later that same year, three polar bears were seen hunting, killing and then eating other bears. In spring 2006, adult female bears and one cub were found dead, their fat stores depleted from starvation. At