Polar bears dying?
Answer:
Well Polar bears are near the endangered species list. Right now we just need to think about what you are doing to the world and how we are destroying it.
yes
people think so
It would seem so, yes.
yup, its getting to warm for them up north and becasue lack of fish. and since some of the ice caps are melting, they swim for miles to find another one, they can only swim for so long. and they drown. sucks.
Yes, Polar Bears are dying due to global warming - the ice floes that the bears live and hunt from are disappearing. Also mother bears are abandoning their cubs due to lack of food.
Due to warming at the poles, the floating ice that is usually home to the Polar bears are melting, the ice is thinning and temperature is rising. The polar bears are thus forced to take riskier swims. There have been accounts of polar bears drowning, as well as starving due to food shortage.
So the answer is yes, polar bears are dying when they shouldn't be.
Um .... there are ten times more polar bears today than there were in the 70s. I guess if you change the meaning of dying, you could say that.
i like polar bears but moose r better
A new study by Dr. David Legates, Delaware's State Climatologist and director of the University of Delaware's Center for Climatic Research, throws cold water on the claim that global warming threatens to cause the extinction of polar bears.
Scare Unwarranted
As part of his study titled Climate Science: Climate Change and its Impacts, expected at press time to be released in April of this year, Legates reviewed assertions by environmental alarmists that global warming is causing an unnatural increase in Arctic temperatures, posing a threat to the thickness and extent of sea ice required by polar bears. In particular, Legates examined claims made in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (Arctic Assessment), an international project of the Arctic Council--an intergovernmental forum consisting of representatives from eight Arctic nations and six groups representing indigenous peoples.
Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice floes.
In a quarter-century of aerial surveys of the Alaskan coastline before 2004, researchers from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said they typically spotted a lone polar bear swimming in the ocean far from ice about once every two years. Polar-bear drownings were so rare that they have never been documented in the surveys.
But in September 2004, when the polar ice cap had retreated a record 160 miles north of the northern coast of Alaska, researchers counted 10 polar bears swimming as far as 60 miles offshore. Polar bears can swim long distances but have evolved to mainly swim between sheets of ice, scientists say.
The researchers returned to the vicinity a few days after a fierce storm and found four dead bears floating in the water. "Extrapolation of survey data suggests that on the order of 40 bears may have been swimming and that many of those probably drowned as a result of rough seas caused by high winds," the researchers say in a report set to be released today.
While the government researchers won't speculate on why a climate change is taking place in the Arctic, environmentalists unconnected to the survey say U.S. policies emphasizing oil and gas development are exacerbating global warming, which is accelerating the melting of the ice. "For anyone who has wondered how global warming and reduced sea ice will affect polar bears, the answer is simple -- they die," said Richard Steiner, a marine-biology professor at the University of Alaska.
The environmental group Greenpeace began airing a 30-second commercial yesterday in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and other cities showing an animated adult polar bear and a cub on a cracking ice floe. The two bears, nowhere near land, slip underneath the water. "Polar bears may soon be extinct because of global warming," the voice-over states. It ends with "Global Warming: It's the Real Thing," a takeoff of a Coca-Cola Co. commercial featuring polar bears.
Some experts say that climate change may indeed be shrinking the ice pack, but they dispute that emissions are the main culprit or that significantly cutting greenhouse gases would really make a difference. "Whether humans are responsible for some, most, or all of the current warming trend in the Arctic, there is no proposal on the table that would actually prevent continued warming or reverse present trends," said Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nongovernment organization based in Dallas. "The question is how to adapt to future changes in climate, regardless of the direction or the cause."
In addition to documenting polar-bear deaths, the Minerals Management Service researchers, Chuck Monnett, Jeffrey Gleason and Lisa Rotterman, also found a striking shift in the bears' habits. From 1979 to 1991, 87% of the bears spotted were found mostly on sea ice. From 1992 to 2004, the percentage dropped to 33%. Most of the remaining bears have been found either in the ocean or on beaches, congregating around carcasses of whales butchered by hunters. In the past, polar bears were rarely seen at such kill sites, because they spent their time hunting their favorite meal -- seals -- on sea ice.
Marine experts consider the findings -- to be presented at a marine-mammal conference this week in San Diego -- an ominous sign. Some have warned for years that a rapid thawing of the Arctic from global warming could endanger species like the polar bear. Already, a warmer Alaska over the past half-century has been linked to increased erosion of rivers and streams, insect infestations and the undermining of pipelines and roads as the permafrost thaws.
Alarmed by the swift changes, the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, a consortium of the state's tribes, earlier this month passed a resolution urging that the U.S. government enact a mandatory program to reduce global warming.
Some scientists predict polar bears could become extinct within the next century because they have adapted over the millennia to only hunting on ice. If they try to swim in disappearing ice conditions to catch seals, more are likely to tire and drown, scientists say. Polar bears that stay onshore aren't adapted to hunting land animals like caribou, which are preyed upon by more-aggressive grizzly bears. Polar bears also require more fat intake than most food on land offers them, experts say.
"As the sea ice goes, that will direct to a very great extent what happens to polar bears," said Steven Amstrup, a polar-bear specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska.
yes
yes they are because of global warming. they cant swim and the ice is melting so they have to swim or else they die and most of them are all ready
ya its really sad to know that we are the reason we caused global warming which basicaly melting antartica
so if u really want to save them then stop global warming
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