Legendary commercial actor, tropical friend of Santa Claus, and explorer of the North, the Polar Bear is nothing if not the symbol of Arctic life. Their Latin name, Ursus maritimus, translates to sea bear and provides unconfined insight into how they live. As noon predators, polar bears spend lots of time hunting in and virtually Arctic waters for their prey, their favourite of which is the ringed seal. Polar bears are recognisable by their white stratify and their large size. Males tend to weigh between 350-600 kilograms while females will weigh between 150-290 kilograms, both can be over 10 feet tall when standing. Their persons are made to withstand all the unprepossessed that the Arctic climate has to offer, as their two layers of fur and thick layer of blubber offer them increasingly than unbearable warmth to survive – sometimes plane too much warmth for the summers!
Apart from the big screen, polar bears live wideness the Arctic region, particularly in five countries: Canada, the US, Greenland, Russia, and Norway. As such, polar bears represent history for many peoples wideness the Arctic. For millennia, various ethnic groups have counted on polar bears as key contributors to their ways of life. They are still hunted today as part of their long-held traditions, but the process is very monitored and respectful of the prey. Nearly every part of a polar withstand is used by the hunters, whether for weather-appropriate suit or for calorie-rich meals. Many regulations have been imposed on the hunters, serving to protect polar withstand populations from stuff threatened by uncontrived human action.
So what’s the issue?
According to both SARA and COSEWIC, polar bears are a species of special concern. Although constructive in curtailing over-hunting, the regulations do not address the main threat polar bears face; climate change. Polar bears rely on sea ice as their habitat. This has historically worked very well for them as it allows them plenty of room for hunting, but lately, with rising global temperatures as a result of climate change, living on the ice has wilt increasingly trying for them. Variegated polar withstand populations squatter variegated challenges, but among the most threatened are those living in regions of Seasonal Ice and Polar Basin Divergent Ice.
The existence of Seasonal Ice, as the name suggests, is dependent on the season as it melts in the summer and uncork to return in the fall. When the ice melts it leaves polar bears unable to hunt, forcing them into a fast. Fasting is not new to them, but the elapsing of the melt is getting much longer than it used to be, making it increasingly challenging for polar bears to fast through longer summers. For Polar Basin Divergent Ice regions the challenges are similar. The sea ice builds up near shores and will retract from the shores as it melts in the warmer months. Climate transpiration accelerates this process and melts increasingly of the ice near the shore. This forces the bears to either go when to land where they would have to fast or swimming remoter out in search of increasingly ice.
What can we do?
The most important thing we can do to alimony polar bears unscratched is to support environmental initiatives in government. Making untried choices from the top-down is essential to fighting climate transpiration on a macro scale, and the weightier way to do this is to stay informed on the issues withal with the candidates who well-wisher for them. On a increasingly personal level, supporting polar withstand charities or conservation organisations goes a long way in furthering research, and making eco-friendly decisions in our daily lives can push others to follow suit.
The post The Polar Bear: Rider of Icebergs appeared first on Nature Canada.
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