What's up with the polar bear?

I have actually worked with Andy Derocher (not specifically on this project however) and do know a number of his present and past grad students working on his polar bear project. It's a very major issue, that really stems from the warming of the arctic and the disappearance of multiyear sea ice as well as when freeze up and thaw occurs in the year. For the Hudson Bay population, the freeze up has been occurring (on average) later in the season and thaw occurs earlier in the spring. The bears come on shore during the summer months and don't really feed (no seals on shore - or often become nuisance animals in the town of Churchill, Manitoba). When the summer was shorter, the bears didn't have as long to go without food. They could get back to their hunting earlier, which of course increases their reproductive fitness (the more they eat, the more fit they are (more fat supplies, stronger) the more they reproduce, and more frequently). Because average temperatures are increasing (regardless of what the non-believers think, or the people who just want to ignore it, want to believe), the period they can hunt decreases.

As Dr. Derocher pointed out, it's not just about the bears but the whole system - temperature affects seals (they need ice and snow to have their pups), which in turn affect bears, which in turn is going to affect other flora and fauna. Warming has a system-wide effect. We have even started seeing little brown bats further north than ever found before. The pine beetle has been traveling further north too, destroying valuable timber and habitats for other animals and plants, animals and plants that were at one point not threatened by these insects. There have recently been sightings of offspring coming from grizzly bears and polar bears. It's unsure whether these cubs are able to reproduce (likely not). It's becoming a hot topic that many politicians and companies aren't willing to address for fear of economic ramifications (as well as political ones I think). It's scary eh?

Considering that the sea bears diverged from the kodiac brown bears some 200,000 years ago and they have survived two interglacial prior to this one where the arctic ocean was ice free I would not get very worried about the food shortages their current overpopulation is causing. You also need to remember that during the current interglacial there have been three documented periods when the arctic was ice free for from 100 years to a thousand years and the bears survived and thrived during these previous climate optimums.

want the truth??/

WWF wanted a CUTE arctic animal they could show as being endangered.. they wanted this so they could sue the us government in an attempt to force them to impose co2 limits to save the arctic animal that was endangered.... <based on the recent cases where judges have shown co2 is a reasonable cause effect to global warming>

they new that if it came down to an ugly animal or cash.. cash wins.. so they needed something really cute like an arctic fox or a fur seal

since they couldnt' find any of those.. and knutt got so very popular they decided that polar bears would work...

they declared the polar bears to be in trouble NOT based on population but because they ASSUME that their believe about how the polar bears would respond to global warming...

<which is funny since the polar bears thrived in previous warming periods>

hope that makes it a lil clearer

Interesting.

I wonder if you ever heard of David Suzuki, not to mention that half of Canadians are practically Stalinists demonstrates to me you know next to nothing about politics and cannot reasonably evaluate leftist bias. I for one can recognize your leftist bias. If global warming wasn't a political issue, I couldn't do that with such confidence.

So what of it?! As climate changes, some creatures adapt, others disappear. It happened to the huge trees of the Carboniferous period, happened to the Dinosaurs, to the sabertooth tigers, to the Neanderthals and it will someday happen to us too.

It's the way of life. It's called NATURAL SELECTION.

And though we may not think of it this way, we're part of nature. With our puny, stupid, primitive technology and all...

i would say their population. the polar bear population is around 30,000 right now. 30 years ago it was down around 5000. yeah global warming is real bad for the polar bear.

that is a leftist propaganda site.

The french scientist, who preposed the global warming theory anounced 2 years ago that after 30 years of study that the evadance does not support the theory.

Global warming and cooling, is directly related to the power output of the sun, and the sun does not emit a constant amount of heat, it varies

Remember the "Little Ice age"