Polar bear victim of climate change

[Shirokuma]

Starved polar bear perished due to record sea-ice melt, says expert | Environment | theguardian.com

Starved polar bear perished due to record sea-ice melt, says expert

Climate change has reduced ice in the Arctic to record lows in the past year, forcing animals to range further in search of food

A starved polar bear found found dead in Svalbard as "little more than skin and bones" perished due to a lack of sea ice on which to hunt seals, according to a polar bear expert.

Climate change has reduced sea ice in the Arctic to record lows in the last year and Dr Ian Stirling, who has studied the bears for almost 40 years and examined the animal, said the lack of ice forced the bear into ranging far and wide in an ultimately unsuccessful search for food.

"From his lying position in death, the bear appears to simply have starved and died where he dropped," Stirling said. "He had no external suggestion of any remaining fat, having been reduced to little more than skin and bone."

The bear had been examined by scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute in April in the southern part of Svalbard, an Arctic island archipelago, and appeared healthy. The same bear had been captured in the same area in previous years, suggesting that the discovery of its body, 250km away in northern Svalbard, represented an unusual movement away from its normal range. The bear probably followed the fjords inland as it trekked north, meaning it may have walked double or treble that distance.

Polar bears feed almost exclusively on seals and need sea ice to capture their prey. But 2012 saw the lowest level of sea ice in the Arctic on record. Prond Robertson, at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, said: "The sea ice break up around Svalbard in 2013 was both fast and very early." He said recent years had been poor for ice around the islands: "Warm water entered the western fjords in 2005-06 and since then has not shifted."

Stirling, now at Polar Bears International and previously at the University of Alberta and the Canadian Wildlife Service, said: "Most of the fjords and inter-island channels in Svalbard did not freeze normally last winter and so many potential areas known to that bear for hunting seals in spring do not appear to have been as productive as in a normal winter. As a result, the bear likely went looking for food in another area but appears to have been unsuccessful."

Research published in May showed that loss of sea ice was harming the health, breeding success and population size of the polar bears of Hudson Bay, Canada as they spent longer on land waiting for the sea to refreeze. In February, a panel of polar bear experts published a paper stating that rapid ice loss meant options such the feeding of starving bears by humans needed to be considered to protect the 20,000-25,000 animals that remain.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature's expert group states that of the 19 populations of polar bear around the Arctic, data is available for 12. Of those, eight are declining, three are stable and one is increasing.

 

[nanoboy]

Less time wasted procrastinating, writing reports, and harping about reducing carbon emissions, and more time implementing a solution today. There may be no polar bears left by the time the warming trend diminishes.

In the mean time, I agree that we need to start feeding them.

 

[gentle lemur]

To adapt an old proverb, one polar bear does not make a global warming event. I think it is highly probable that several polar bears have starved to death in most summers since the species evolved.
I am certainly not denying the dangers of climate change or the likelihood that it will catch up with us all pretty soon. The fact remains that a sample of one is too small to be significant.

Alan

 

[nanoboy]

To adapt an old proverb, one polar bear does not make a global warming event. I think it is highly probable that several polar bears have starved to death in most summers since the species evolved.
I am certainly not denying the dangers of climate change or the likelihood that it will catch up with us all pretty soon. The fact remains that a sample of one is too small to be significant.

Alan

But the fact remains that the sea ice broke up very quickly, and it follows logically that hunting will be more difficult. The fact is that we are having some of the warmest years on records in the last decade. So taking this into account, one dead polar bear is indicative of many others that we have not found in the vastness of the Arctic.

 

[gentle lemur]

So taking this into account, one dead polar bear is indicative of many others that we have not found in the vastness of the Arctic.

No!
It might be indicative of climate change: on the other hand it might be indicative of old age or shortage of prey for a different reason or increased competition with fitter bears or of some illness that was not detected post mortem etc.
If there are many others we need to know, the logical response is to look for them and investigate further.

Alan

 

[nanoboy]

No!
It might be indicative of climate change: on the other hand it might be indicative of old age or shortage of prey for a different reason or increased competition with fitter bears or of some illness that was not detected post mortem etc.
If there are many others we need to know, the logical response is to look for them and investigate further.

Alan

Nah there's no need for the logic you are prescribing because the anecdotal evidence (no ice, warming temperatures) already paints a pretty clear picture. Time to act, not do more investigations, in my opinion.

 

[gentle lemur]

Nah there's no need for the logic you are prescribing because the anecdotal evidence (no ice, warming temperatures) already paints a pretty clear picture. Time to act, not do more investigations, in my opinion.

You don't get it!
You and I both know it's time to act, but our individual actions are of very little value. Anecdotal evidence is not good enough to convince the people who make the big decisions because it's so easy to deny or ignore. One dead polar bear is insignificant. Politicians can't make hard choices until a majority of the electorate is convinced that there is a clear and present danger. That consensus will need overwhelming evidence.
We need other things too of course, better technology, better international co-operation, better strategies and tactics - but they are pointless without clear, factual evidence at every stage.

Alan

 

[Jana]

My comment is only indirectly connected with the discussed dead polar bear. But as far I´ m concerned, I hope there WILL be a slight global warming during the next decades.

Not only will the area usable for most species expand. But also with higher global temperature, global rainfall will inevitably increase. That means more water for deserts and semideserts, more trees. You can see the first signs of it - for example sahel is greener then 50 years ago, despite overgrazing and water usage for irrigation, Sahara is shrinking. I hope this trend will help also other problematic areas like Aral sea.

Climate always changes. I would prefer a new medieval warm period over a new little ice age. BTW, polar bears as a species´s already proved to be able to survive interglacial periods just fine.

 

[lintworm]

You are the first I hear saying that the sahara is shrinking, in stead I have only read reports that this is definetely not the case....

Even a slight global warming might have some serious consequences for many species, extensive research on European butterflies predicted that many butterfly species do suffer significantly from even 1 degree rise in temperature, not only because they cannot disperse quickly enough (the average butterfly of the genus Cupido, doesn't fly more then 5 meters away from the place where it hatched...). But more important is that the preferences of most host plants are (slightly) different then the butterflies preferences, meaning that the areas where host plants and butterflies overlap get smaller... It is already visible that birds and butterflies cannot cope with the warming in Europe, eg it goes to fast (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n2/full/nclimate1347.html).

Unfortunately climate change also means more extreme weather events, and I doubt how high resilience against these events is in many ecosystems.....

 

[Jana]

Try for example this link.
Sahara Desert Greening Due to Climate Change?

Climate always changes. Most species can cope with it and survive, they just move their areal, some can´t and have inevitable to dwindle or even die out and their niche will be taken over by something else, maybe even better.

Take my favourite flamingos as an example. Modern flamingos of the genus Phoenicopterus, for a normal human not distinguishable from birds you can see in every zoo, has been here for at least 30.000.000 years, have survived all the glacials and are still kicking.

It is the local human decisions that endanger species. Pollution, uncontrolled culling, agriculture intensification, fragmentation of left suitable habitats, increase of traffic, overusing of resources etc. Not human caused climate warming, that we even still are unable to at least measure corretly. We as human species are unable to fight with climate changes (in both directions), we should include it into our calculations and be prepaired, learn to live with it. And leave wild nature enough connected refugies so that species areals can move south or north depending on changing conditions.

Extreme weather events is something nature can deal with, it can be harsh on individual animals and populations, but viewing it as a complex, it probably increases biodiversity in such areas, opening new oportunities.

I don´t know if military can be used as an example, but places used for training, with destroyed trees, deep tank traces, open soil, burned areas, are also places with very high presence of rare species - because such destructive activity creates biotop that is normally very rare in normal stagnating central european landscape.

Periodical fires are necessary for some specialised species, other species take advantage of biotops created by repeated floods or periodical strong wet and dry seasons. An increase of such events will change the equilibrium, help some species, make life difficult for others. But that is normal.

 

[nanoboy]

You don't get it!
You and I both know it's time to act, but our individual actions are of very little value. Anecdotal evidence is not good enough to convince the people who make the big decisions because it's so easy to deny or ignore. One dead polar bear is insignificant. Politicians can't make hard choices until a majority of the electorate is convinced that there is a clear and present danger. That consensus will need overwhelming evidence.
We need other things too of course, better technology, better international co-operation, better strategies and tactics - but they are pointless without clear, factual evidence at every stage.

Alan

Ok I agree with you there. I was more referring to WWF having teams of volunteers feeding polar bears from tomorrow rather than governments funding it. Governments often need to see an idea working on a small scale before getting involved on a larger scale.

 

[lintworm]

Try for example this link.
Sahara Desert Greening Due to Climate Change?

Climate always changes. Most species can cope with it and survive, they just move their areal, some can´t and have inevitable to dwindle or even die out and their niche will be taken over by something else, maybe even better.

Take my favourite flamingos as an example. Modern flamingos of the genus Phoenicopterus, for a normal human not distinguishable from birds you can see in every zoo, has been here for at least 30.000.000 years, have survived all the glacials and are still kicking.

It is the local human decisions that endanger species. Pollution, uncontrolled culling, agriculture intensification, fragmentation of left suitable habitats, increase of traffic, overusing of resources etc. Not human caused climate warming, that we even still are unable to at least measure corretly. We as human species are unable to fight with climate changes (in both directions), we should include it into our calculations and be prepaired, learn to live with it. And leave wild nature enough connected refugies so that species areals can move south or north depending on changing conditions.

Extreme weather events is something nature can deal with, it can be harsh on individual animals and populations, but viewing it as a complex, it probably increases biodiversity in such areas, opening new oportunities.

I don´t know if military can be used as an example, but places used for training, with destroyed trees, deep tank traces, open soil, burned areas, are also places with very high presence of rare species - because such destructive activity creates biotop that is normally very rare in normal stagnating central european landscape.

Periodical fires are necessary for some specialised species, other species take advantage of biotops created by repeated floods or periodical strong wet and dry seasons. An increase of such events will change the equilibrium, help some species, make life difficult for others. But that is normal.

Interesting link, I am now looking for that scientific paper

I do not think the military can be seen as a good example as fire is used as a management tool and is controlled. It is in essence not that much different from sod-cutting or mowing, it's impact is just a little higher. But it works and in the Netherlands we have some species only found on military grounds, because of this management practice.

But if extreme weather events increase (same goes for fire) then systems may not be resilient and we probably then see a shift to an alternative stable state. Wheareas this system would normally be able to cope with such events. Read for this the following paper: http://bio.classes.ucsc.edu/bioe107/Scheffer 2001 Nature.pdf

I also know that many species have survived many ice ages, so that would not be a problem. My point however is, is that f.e. the paper in my previous post, suggests that the warming goes to fast and animals/plants cannot speed up their dispersal to such an extent they can cope perfectly with the warming climate.

Further in the most ice ages before, their were no humans, or they had at least not a big impact. The last ice age is an exeption of that. But with climate change now and species needing to adapt and disperse in a highly fragmented landscape. Many less mobile species will not have the capacity for that. Simply because there is only very little space to go, because the rest is all highly human influenced, fe cities, an intensifying or already highly intensive agriculture etc. That is in my opinion the biggest difference with former ice ages and imo also a fact that could be a very large problem...