Death on Two Legs

theslyestfox:

Climate change leaves some Hudson Bay polar bears starving

Experts say the slow formation of winter ice on Hudson Bay this year has pushed some of Canada’s polar bears to the brink of starvation and forced them to scrounge for food near old garbage dumps.

The bears weren’t able to get onto the ice to hunt seals until late November this year, which observers say is becoming the norm.

David Barber, one of the world’s top Arctic researchers, said Hudson Bay polar bears have lost six weeks of hunting time on the ice due to climate change.

The bay often doesn’t freeze up until early December now and thaws earlier in the spring, he said, leaving polar bears with less time to bulk up on fatty seal meat.

“Those bears are all lining up along the coast line waiting for the ice to form,” said Barber, who holds the Canada research chair in Arctic science at the University of Manitoba.

“They’re basically all starving. They are really at their limit biologically.”

Polar bears depend on winter hunting to build up enough fat to carry them through the lean summer months on land. The bears lose at least one kilogram of fat a day when they aren’t on the ice.

Given they are off the ice for up to 150 days, the hefty bears can lose well over 100 kilograms — leaving some emaciated by the time the ice freezes again.

Canada is home to about two-thirds of the world’s polar bears but experts say climate change could make the Hudson Bay population extinct within a few decades.

We can save them from extinction if we act now to stop global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to limit carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants in 2012, but they are coming under assault from polluter-funded attack groups and their anti-wildlife allies in Congress. With your gift, the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund can run ads in key markets, meet directly with elected officials, and drive thousands of phone calls and letters to Congress with one clear message: polar bears’ survival depends on enacting measures to cut global warming pollution in 2012. You can make an urgent gift HERE.