I heard on the news some days ago that Polar Bears, unable to get out onto ice floes to get to the seals, are eating their young. I opened my Canadian Wildlife Calendar December first to a picture of a mother Polar Bear resting on the ice, with her young pup sleeping up on her back, and I thought, how sad, if the above account is true. Governments hem and haw over Global Warming when so many signs show it to be self evident. The mother neither eats nor drinks while in the den bearing and rearing her young, which makes it extremely important that she gets to the seals for her nourshment, and those of her young. How can she maintain herself and her young if the ice flows are melting? Seals are the main source of her food.
Since the mother Polar Bear had only a single pup in the picture, and they usually have two, one must speculate why one pup? The other was eaten my a hungry male? the mother was unable to nourish two, therefore only the stronger survived? Perhaps only the photographer knew. Perhaps not. Is there a more sinister reason? She looked rather lean.
The Polar Bear is a member of a class of endangered species. They are protected in the Northern countries of their habitat: (US) Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Denmark, and Russia, by an International Agreement on Conservation and Managememt of Polar Bears. Not only climate change, but pollution, industrial activities, and poaching, can harm them.
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/
Let us hope that something good comes out of the Copenhagen Conference on Climate
Change--especially sea ice loss--to help the Polar Bear.
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