Polar Bear Numbers Falling Drastically North Of Alaska
According to the results of a recent study, polar bear numbers in the frozen sea that lies North of Alaska fell by approximately 40% between 2001 and 2010. Canadian and American scientists and researchers from the US Geological survey found that survival rates for bears in the South Beaufort Sea were extremely low between 2004 and 2006 when only 2 of the 80 cubs they were monitoring managed to survive. Overall polar bear survival rates began to improve in 2007, however the number of juvenile bears that survived fell throughout the decade long study period. In 2010 the Alaskan polar bear population was estimated at just 900 which was the final year of the study.
Decline blamed on lack access to food
Scientists are blaming the low survival rates on the lack of access to seals in the winter and summer months as well as a decline in seal numbers. Over the last few decades as a result of global warming, the ice in winter has become increasingly mobile and thinner. This has resulted in more frequent breaks which in turn produces rough and jumbled ice conditions which researchers believe makes it harder for polar bears to catch seals.
“The low survival may have been caused by a combination of factors that could be difficult to unravel, and why survival improved at the end of the study is unknown,” said Jeff Bromaghin, a USGS research statistician and lead author of the study, in a statement.
Population decline distressing
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has a Polar Bear Specialist Group which has been tracking the global population of polar bears and will look at the new data against the backdrop of both current and historic trends. Polar Bears International chief scientist Dr. Steven Amstrup says he has spent most of his adult life working with this particular group of polar bears and was distressed to see the population fall so precipitously.
“In 2007, my colleagues and I predicted we could lose polar bears from the Southern Beaufort Sea by the middle of this century if we didn’t get on to a different greenhouse gas emissions path, this report confirms we still are on the wrong path.” said Dr. Amstrup
Man made climate change is responsible for habitat destruction for thousands of species around the world and the polar bear is simply the latest example of a species that could quite easily become extinct if the human race fails to change its ways. It is so unfortunate that human development must conflict with a healthy environment and more worryingly there doesn’t seem to be the political will to do anything meaningful to help preserve the species that are most at risk from climate change.