Reports: global warming may be forcing polar bears to drowning, cannibalism

<body leftmargin="0" bgcolor="#000060" text="#FFFFFF" link="#FFFF00" vlink="#FF9900"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="95%" height="1"> <tr> <center> <td valign="top" width="33%" height="33"> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font face="Arial" size="5">Reports: global warming may be forcing polar bears to drowning, cannibalism</font></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1" face="Arial">March 30</font><font face="Arial"><font size="1">, 2005<br> Courtesy <br> and World Science staff<br> </font><br> </font><font face="Arial" size="2"><b>Global warming is forcing polar bears into cannibalism and suicidal swims as the temperature change melts away their home, some researchers claim.<br> <br> The reports, described in a news story this week’s issue of the research journal Nature, are unproven, the article said. “Experts say it is too early to be sure, but that these are the kind of impacts expected as melting sea ice leaves the bears with longer distances to travel,” the report added.<br> <br> Some of the reports came from a biennial conference on the biology of sea mammals in San Diego, California, last week, the report said.<br> <br> At the meeting, marine biologists from the U.S. Minerals Management Service reported finding four bears drowned off the northern coast of Alaska last autumn, according to Nature. <br> <br> They also spotted an unusually large number of bears swimming in the open sea, some as far as 95 kilometres offshore, the report claimed—types of swim for which they’re poorly adapted. <br> <br> Twenty percent of bears seen in the area in September were in the water, Nature cited the scientists saying, while records from previous years show that 4 percnet of sighted bears were swimming. <br> <br> Tonje Folkestad, climate-change officer at the World Wildlife Fund’s Arctic programme in Oslo, Norway, told Nature that “We can’t say at the moment that there is a trend for polar bears to drown… But we do expect to see more of this kind of event in the future.” <br> <br> Spending more time in the open sea increases bears’ exposure to the risks of the effect of cold, exhaustion or rough seas. “Common sense tells you that if they have to swim 60 miles instead of 20, drowning is more likely,” Folkestad told the journal.<br> <br> Folkestad added that melting Arctic ice, the main habitat for polar bears, presents major problems for them. The Arctic ice sheet is shrinking at a about 10% per decade, with Arctic summer temperatures climbing to around 2 °C higher than they were 50 years ago. About 1.3 million square kilometres, an area equivalent to three times that of California, have been lost over the past four years.<br> <br> The new report is not hard proof of clear links between melting ice and negative effects on polar bears. But as anecdotal evidence accumulates, conservationists and scientists are becoming concerned. Researchers funded by the WWF in Yakutia, northeastern Russia, have seen an unusually high number of bears in the area this year, as well as recording a record low for sea ice. <br> <br> Conservation rangers in Yakutia, northeastern Russia, saw two incidents of one bear killing another, with some media reports claiming that starving bears were practicing ‘cannibalism,’ Nature noted. <br> <br> “These observations are not rare or extraordinary in themselves,” Folkestad told Nature. “What was unusual was the lack of sea ice in the area.”</b></font></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font face="Arial" size="2">* * *</font></p> <p><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#FFFFFF">Send us a <a href="mailto:editor@world-science.net">comment</a> on this story, or <a href="mailto:?Body=http://www.world-science.net/othernews/051222_polarfrm.htm">send it to a friend</a></font></p> <p></b></p> </center></td> </tr> </table> </body>