October 1, 2007 - Uncategorized

sagar: Author=’Deborah Byrd’ program=” video=”The future looks pretty bad for polar bears. According to a recent “report”:http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1773, Earth’s polar bears could be “two-thirds gone”:http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2007/09/08/next_50_years_may_be_last_for_polar_bears/9445/ by 2050 – that’s only 43 years from now.

The reports says that the shrinking bear population is a direct result of “melting ice”:http://earthsky.org/radioshows/50449/rapid-and-dramatic-sea-ice-shrinkage-in-arctic in their Arctic habitat because of global warming.

Polar bears need the sea ice to stand on when they hunt seals, their primary food. But there’s less sea ice throughout their Arctic range due to climate change.

A science team reached these conclusions by spending six months studying data on polar bears and their habitat. The team documented the direct relationship between the Arctic sea ice and the survival and health of polar bears.

More bad news … their report suggests that there is nothing humans can do to save the bears, because even if we make efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions and limit hunting, that won’t outweigh the effects of habitat loss.

Read more: “Could penguins and polar bears swap habitats?”:http://earthsky.org/radioshows/49930/penguins-north-pole

Written by Eleanor Imster