Polar bears are becoming more scarce: This year’s Arctic report card features a special section on the state of polar bears, which depend on sea ice to travel, hunt and mate. The more data biologists are able to collect, the more clear the link between declining sea ice and declining bear numbers becomes; the report reaffirms that global warming is “the most significant threat to the long-term survival of the species”. Between 1987 and 2011, in Canada’s western Hudson Bay, numbers dropped from 1,194 bears to 806, a loss attributed to an ever-shorter ice season. In the southern Beaufort Sea the loss was even more dramatic: A 40 percent decline just between 2001 and 2010, to about 900 bears.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 13:28:20 +0000
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