What Polar Bear Tipping Point Means - Potential Population Declines Of Up To 30% In One Year

[hatrack]

A mathematical analysis for the first time has uncovered the prospect of a sudden, dramatic decline among Canadian polar bears as they starve to death. “This is much, much different. This is not a gradual change,” said Dr. Andrew Derocher, one of the world’s leading polar bear authorities and co-author of the study. “We’re looking at a decrease by 20 or 30 per cent or even much more in a year.” The study was released this week just as Environment Canada is meeting to decide, also for the first time, whether polar bears should be declared a species at risk.

“The key thing is that this allows us to look forward better and more accurately,” said Derocher of the study, which combined his expertise as a University of Alberta professor who has studied polar bears for 28 years with that of two biomathematicians. You can go a reasonable period of time without seeing major effects. But once you look at the data, you start to see sudden, dramatic changes.”

Scientists factored in the shrinking sea ice, which affects how many seals the bears can eat before they hibernate and how easily they can find mates. Without enough food or opportunity, mating is less successful, fewer, less robust cubs are born, and teenage bears spend longer “wandering around trying to find something to eat.” All of that information can be subjected to “some fairly advanced math” to create data tables that chart the estimated time of death by starvation for adult male polar bears.

Typically 120 days in the 1980s, the time polar bears have to spend fasting has increased by about seven days per decade and is continuing to increase. While 3 to 6 per cent of polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay die during a 120-day summer fast, 28 to 48 per cent would die if it reached 180 days, the study found. The fast occurs because polar bears depend on frozen sea surface to cover distances. There are about 900 polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay now.

EDIT

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/815309--polar-bear-population-could-fall-by-30-per-cent-in-a-year-study

[glinda]

1. They are near doomed. I personally would like to see some relocated and some bred

with regular bears (Sure I do not know science but hey, that is what I think!) if possible in order to keep some remnant of these lovely creatures around.

[FedUpWithIt All]

2. Nature is already taking care of that but that will not stop the loss of the polar bear species.

The breeding simply creates a new hybrid species. This is increasing in nature but has historically not been common.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/polar-bears_2.html