Sea ice is instrumental to their hunting strategy, and it's now dwindling due to rising temperatures in the Arctic, which is warming at roughly twice the rate as the planet overall.
it makes it more likely for the polar bears to go days without eating
They often travel long distances and wait hours or days for a single seal, and while only a fraction of their hunts succeed, it's generally worth the trouble for such fatty food.
it's actually a bit more difficult to hunt for food than I thought, a possibility of eating none or 1 for the day
but we have too little data to establish trends for another eight populations
difficult to gather data on these polar bears
Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, a multilateral treaty signed in 1973 by the five polar bear nations listed above. It prohibits unregulated hunting of polar bears, along with using aircraft or large motorized vehicles to hunt them, and compels member states to take appropriate actions to preserve the ecosystems that sustain polar bears.
action was taken in the past to try and protect the polar bears
If the public believes there is nothing they can do, they will do nothing
nothing will be done if nothing is said. if you take a step forward, hopefully people will follow in your footsteps trying to save the polar bears
There has been a significant intentional campaign to mislead the public, and there also has been a failure of scientists and managers to effectively convey the truth and counteract the lies.
misinforming the public and not giving enough information to the public can both negatively impact their opinions because either the facts are too much or just refuse to believe it due to whatever education they have learned
The problem is that many have become fixated on the prospect of setting up refuges, establishing critical habitats, regulating hunting, etc. and those topics can become dangerous distractions from the real concern and the only thing that can really save polar bears.
!!! many are finding temporary fixes when we need permanent solutions and more focused on trying to preserve the remaining bears rather than protecting the current and future ones
without stopping greenhouse gas rise, no other management actions can make a difference
reducing our carbon footprint is the key to slowing down global warming and saving the polar bears
learned that many of them have (or at least used to have) their cubs in dens constructed on drifting pack ice. These maternal females would be transported in the blind hundreds of kilometers. They would emerge with new tiny cubs and know exactly how to come back home.
cool but what if the ice the den is on, just melts away because of global warming and the mother can't find her cub :(
The bears are the first and only species to be listed as endangered because of threats posed by global warming.
the first and only at this time... that's how badly global warming was affecting the polar bears
He has called attention to their plight and the grim future they face due to the disappearance of Arctic ice caused by climate change
the melting ice from global warming is the main cause of polar bears being endangered
continue to consult with one another with the object of giving further protection
strength in numbers and working together, not separately
take action as appropriate to promote compliance with the provisions of this Agreement by nationals of States not party to this Agreement
can try and convince other countries not part of this Agreement to join the efforts of saving the polar bears
conduct national research programmes on polar bears, particularly research relating to the conservation and management of the species.
not only taking physical actions on preserving the polar bears, they are also conducting research to find even more ways to preserve them
prohibit the exportation from, the importation and delivery into, and traffic within, its territory of polar bears
tighter restrictions on the transportations of polar bears, so it can make it harder for possible hunters to actually take the bear
taking" includes hunting, killing and capturing
this prevents possible poachers from killing the bears
commits all parties to protect the ecosystems of polar bears, especially denning and feeding areas and migration corridors
highlights the attempted preservation of the polar bears
governments of Canada, Denmark, Norway, USSR, and the United States
countries closest to Arctic Circle (closest to polar bears and able to do something on the spot)
Even as world leaders meet in Scotland to try to ratchet up the effort to curb climate change
but did anything good from it?
One sign: A higher proportion of cubs are dying before their first birthdays.
messed up
The more ice, the more they can move around and the more they can eat.
the ice is literally what keeps the polar bears alive through basically everything
"Arctic amplification."
big yikes. worse off than we thought
The Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. In some seasons, it has warmed three times faster than the rest of the globe
the world is soon to have no polar bears roaming the world
says summers without sea ice are inevitable.
definitely heading in the wrong direction of where we should be going
The more the sea ice shrinks in the summer, the thinner the ice is overall, because the ice is weaker first-year ice
despite the ice regrowing, it seems like it's not stable enough for the polar bears to fully travel or live on
But where it lives, where it hunts, where it eats — it’s disappearing underfoot in the crucial summertime.
very endangering to the bears
declining sea ice is likely to decrease polar bear numbers, perhaps substantially
less ground for them to walk and sleep on, harder for them to find food
"Showing how imminent the threat is for different polar bear populations is another reminder that we must act now to head off the worst of future problems faced by us all,
despite Dr Amstrup knowing that we have to do something or it will mean the worse for us, the world isn't technically doing anything to help out
As the ice breaks up, the animals are forced to roam for long distances or on to shore, where they struggle to find food and feed their cubs.
the more they roam for food, the more energy they're using. this is more energy used than planned which makes it even harder to actually find food
Some persists year after year in the Arctic, providing vital habitat for wildlife such as polar bears, seals, and walruses.
the Arctic ecosystem is struggling to stay alive
Under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, it's likely that all but a few polar bear populations will collapse by 2100
the way we're living our lives is most likely going to kill animals and eventually come back to bite us
irst, we'll lose the survival of cubs, so cubs will be born but the females won't have enough body fat to produce milk to bring them along through the ice-free season.
not only losing the cubs, we'll lose future generations of polar bears that would've slowly increased its population
"Polar bears are already sitting at the top of the world; if the ice goes, they have no place to go,"
circumstances have become very severe for the bears
Social media use has consistently been connected with poor body image and disordered eating for young women
Entire paragraph:
When applied to selfies, such feedback can be interpreted as aggregated evaluations of their subject’s physical appearance. We employ objectification theory to explore how value placed on selfie feedback among young women relates to markers of body image disturbance, including body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and bulimia action tendencies.
Every aspect of selfie production and sharing is controlled by the photo subject, and they can take hundreds of selfies before selecting just a few to post
Sixty seconds later, one of the girls reassures her friend, “One, two, three, four, five, six likes in a minute. That’s actually good, Ella” (Reed 2015, lines 27–28). They breathe a sigh of relief