With the increasing deterioration of the polar icecap, many scientists believe these great white bears will be extinct by the year 2030. According to Tim Flannery (The Weather Makers), “the Arctic ice cap is shrinking by 8 percent a year”. With that loss of ice surface goes the habitat of the polar bears, which researchers have found showing signs of stress, such as a decline in average body weight up to 15 percent.
Another encroachment on the planet’s largest carnivores, which feeds mostly on seals, is the debate over opening the Artic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil drilling. Such a choice would infringe on the most important denning areas for the approximate 4000 polar bears living there.
Like other members of the bear family, female polar bears nurse their cubs, though this time has increased from twelve months to 18. In the past, females birthed two to three cubs per year. Now that number has dropped to one. This combined with the longer weaning times foretell impending doom for these magnificent creatures that wander the far north.
Perfectly adapted for the severe conditions of the Arctic the coat of the polar bear insulates it from cold and water. Males can weigh up to a thousand pounds and be eleven feet tall. A polar bear can swim up to sixty miles, the need of which is becoming more frequent as the ice cap disappears beneath their paws.
It would be a tragedy to see our planet lose one of the last true symbols of the primal natural world, especially due to human shortsightedness.
To further help their plight, please share this information with others, and visit: wwwsavepolarbears.org
“…the bear is often considered among Native American people as kin to humans…because it can stand and walk upon two legs.”*
*Animal Speak, Ted Andrews, p.251
www.earthactionrightnow.org
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