Polar bears can die of hunger – scientists

Polar bears living in Canada’s Hudson Bay can starve to death. Due to climate change, ice melts faster and animals spend more time on land, unable to get food.

Polar bears use the ice that covers the surface of the ocean in the Arctic during the cold months to gain access to their main source of food – fatty ringed and bearded seals, writes The Guardian.

In a study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, it is said that 19 out of 20 studied bears lost 11% of their weight because they did not consume their usual food.

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While on land, they feed on bird eggs, berries and grass. Such food does not have the necessary number of calories.

Scientists studied 20 polar bears living in Hudson Bay. For three years, they were monitored using GPS collars with video cameras.

In the western part of the bay, the ice-free period increased by three weeks between 1979 and 2015. This means that over the past decade bears have been on land for approximately 130 days.

The researchers found that of the entire group, two bears actually rested and reduced their energy expenditure to a level similar to hibernation. The remaining 18 remained active.

These active bears may have continued to search for food. Scientists note that they could consume grass, berries, seagulls, rodents and seal carcasses.

Three braved long swims – one of them overcame a distance of 175 kilometers. Instead, others spent time playing together or gnawing on the caribou’s horns, which the researchers said was similar to how dogs gnaw bones.

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“Two of the three bears that went into the water found carcasses of dead animals, but did not eat for long, because they were too tired from their exertions. They cannot eat and swim at the same time.” – noted Charles Robbins, a scientist from the Washington State University Bear Center.

So the longer polar bears stay on land, the higher the risk of starvation for them.

There are 25,000 polar bears left in the wild in the world, and they are under threat of extinction. This is mostly due to the climate crisis. The only way to save them is to stop the ice from melting.

“This is alarming. Limiting emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases and keeping global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as required by the Paris Agreement is likely to preserve polar bear populations.”,” said Anthony Pagano, a wildlife research biologist with the US Geological Survey and lead author of the study.

However, other researchers say climate change will affect polar bears differently depending on where they live.

“It’s very likely that polar bears will disappear from areas where sea ice is lost in the future. But it’s hard for us to say when and where that will happen.”– notes Jon Ars, a scientist from the Norwegian Polar Institute, who was not involved in the research.

It will be recalled that the polar bear swam non-stop for 232 hours in search of an iceberg.

Read also: A polar bear is napping on an iceberg: the winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award has been chosen