Climate change diet: Arctic sea ice thins, so do polar bears

The Economic Times , Saturday, February 03, 2018
Correspondent :
Some polar bears in the Arctic are shedding weight during the time they should be beefing up, a study shows. It's the climate change diet and scientists say it's not good. They blame global warming for the dwindling ice cover on the Arctic Ocean that bears need for hunting seals each spring. The scientists spied on polar bears by equipping nine female white giants with tracking collars that had video cameras and the bear equivalent of a Fitbit during three recent springs. The bears were also weighed. What the scientists found is that five of the bears lost weight and four lost 1.3 to 2.5kg per day. The average polar bear studied weighed about 175kg. One bear lost 23kg in just nine days. "You're talking a pretty amazing amount of mass to lose," said US Geological Survey (USGS) wildlife biologist Anthony Pagano, lead author of the study, in Thursday's edition of 'Science'. Researchers studied the bears for 10 days in April, when they are supposed to begin putting on weight so they can later have cubs, feed them and survive through the harsh winter. But because the ice is shrinking, the bears are having a harder time catching seal pups even during prime hunting time, Pagano said. The US Fish and Wildlife Service lists polar bears as a threatened species. Polar bears hunt from the ice. They often wait for seals to pop out of holes to get air and at other times they swim after seals. If there is less sea ice and it is broken apart, bears have to travel more — often swimming — and that has serious consequences, such as more energy use, hypothermia and risk of death, said University of Alberta biology professor Andrew Derocher, who wasn't part of the study. The study found that on the ice, the polar bears burn up 60% more energy than thought, based on these first real-life measurements done on the ice. A few of the bears travelled more than 250km in about 10 days, Pagano said. "Just to break even they have to capture at least one seal every five to 10 days — and that's just to break even," said study coauthor George Durner, a USGS research zoologist. The ice cover in the Arctic grows in the winter and melts in the summer. Because of climate change, the ice is shrinking and thinning more and earlier, he said.
 
SOURCE : https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/environment/global-warming/climate-change-diet-arctic-sea-ice-thins-so-do-polar-bears/printarticle/62766428.cms
 


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