Nature Ramble

This week…

Polar bears

Polar bears have often been used as the symbol for global warming. Who’s not familiar with this photo of what appears to be a Polar bear clinging to what is purported to be the last ice flow on the planet? If you’re not, then you aren’t spending enough time on the internet. It’s an emotive photo, and it’s design and use is meant to make us feel sorry for the plight of these magnificent animals.

OMG, the last ice flow on the planet!

But, is this the true story?

Will Polar bears become extinct?

Behind the controversy, what’s the real story about the future of polar bears?

It’s November and that time of year when the sleepy town of Churchill, Manitoba, on the western shore of Hudson Bay in Canada, turns into polar bear central.

Hundreds of polar bears, lean but lethargic – their last full meal eaten in the late spring – pass the hours wandering around aimlessly, mock fighting, or simply lying belly-up catching the dim rays of the Arctic gloaming. They are waiting until the ice freezes over and they can go and hunt seals.

Outnumbering them are the tourists who’ve flown in from around the world to get a unique “up close and personal” view of one of the Arctic’s most iconic species.

And last, but not least, there’s the scientists. While some scientists visit the “Polar Bear Capital of the World” to study the bears, others, such as Polar Bears International’s Steven Amstrup, are there because they also see a unique opportunity to inform people about the plight of polar bears.

Because polar bears, most scientists agree, are in trouble.

Human-caused global warming is causing the Arctic sea, the bears’ habitat and hunting ground, to melt and decline. If the trend of sea ice decline continues as it has done, at the rate of about 13 per cent a decade, then polar bears would suffer a loss of habitat, and consequently food.

“The best estimates we’ve got indicate that we’ll probably lose somewhere around two-thirds of the world’s bears somewhere around mid-century, just based on the simple fact that we’re losing sea ice,” says Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta and past chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Polar Bear Specialist Group.

The bears simply depend on sea ice to make a living, Derocher says. “No sea ice means no seals. And no seals means no polar bears.”

Skating on thin ice

Despite its size, Ursus maritimus, the largest member of the bear family, is ideally suited to life on ice, its double-layered coat and its furry-undersided paws insulating it from the chilly Arctic temperatures. A polar bear can stand up to 3 metres tall and weigh up to 600 kilograms – hardly the physique of a figure-skater – but it can move with grace and stealth across the ice surface and sneak up on its prey of ringed and bearded seals.

There are 19 subpopulations of polar bears in the world, 13 of which can be found in Canada. Some of these bears live year-round on the ice, but for populations such as the Hudson Bay bears, the ice proves an ephemeral habitat.

In this region, bears spend the winter months on the ice gorging their prey but, when the ice melts each year, they’re forced onshore where they have insufficient food until the sea ice refreezes in the fall. And as the temperatures in the Artic have risen, the sea ice has begun to melt sooner and refreeze later, leaving the polar bears stranded on land for longer lean times.

“When I first started working in Hudson Bay in the early 1980s, the sea ice would have already formed along the shore quite nicely by now,” Derocher says. “There were years when the bears were gone in the first week in November, but this year it is unlikely that we see any significant sea ice for at least a couple of weeks.”

In the last 30 years, bears have increased the amount of time they are on land by almost 30 days – staying another day longer each year – according to Amstrup. That means the bears are coming ashore to face food shortages before they have stored enough fat to last through the season, he says.

“The bears just run out of energy,” Derocher says. The longer summer fasting time impacts bear health and resilience, and influences reproduction rates, he says.

According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ice coverage is likely to fall below one million square kilometres by 2050. The current changes, and predictions such as these, led to the listing of polar bears in the US as an endangered species in 2008.

Already the numbers of bears in the western Hudson Bay have declined, Amstrup says. “This population is near the southern extreme of the polar bears’ range and so it is one of the most vulnerable populations,” Amstrup says. “If we don’t get our act together soon we may not be able to save these bears.”

Hope or hoax?

Although most scientists appear to agree with Derocher’s grim outlook for the polar bear, there are a few that question it. One of the most vocal of these is Mitch Taylor who spent more than two decades as a polar bear researcher and manager for the Nunavut government.

“Are we just about to lose our polar bears? No we are not,” Taylor says. “We are seeing 130 years of climate warming that has increased temperature of about 0.75 degrees and that has obviously affected the sea ice, but the polar bears don’t seem to have been affected so far.”

The crux of Taylor’s argument is that the world’s polar bears are thriving, at least in terms of numbers. The current scientific consensus places the worldwide polar bear population between 20,000 and 25,000 animals, more polar bears than existed prior to the 1973 International Agreement worldwide restriction on polar bear hunting.

“This is the time the Inuit call ‘The one with most bears’,” Taylor says.

Source: BBCNews Read more

Nature Ramble

Something a little different today.

Ice breaker: How do you find a mate for a polar bear?

A mate has been sought for one of two male polar bears kept in Scotland but what does it take to find the perfect mate for a polar bear?

Arktos shares an enclosure with Walker at the Highland Wildlife Park at Kincraig, near Aviemore. Next year, Arktos could be paired up with a female. But the process of finding a suitable mate is far from simple.

Arktos, right, is a year older than Walker. He arrived at the park in April 2012 from a zoo in Hannover, Germany. Walker has been at the site since November 2010, after being introduced from a Dutch zoo.

The two are the only polar bears in a UK zoo.

More great photos and story

Change the World Wednesday – 23rd Jan

Last week’s CTWW was about picking an area of the house and organise it.

I chose my junk drawer…

Before

After

Medications, etc to the right; soaps and extras to the left, tooly bits and things in the middle.

I’m afraid I didn’t throw away much, in fact my discards amounted to a perished rubberband. But I did find the remains of a packet of parsley seeds that I will have another shot at propagating as a house plant/s.

On with this week’s challenge without further ado.

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This week start an “Action” journal. List the Eco-tasks you’d like to accomplish this year. This can be done in an actual journal, a blog … or even on a piece of paper. Get the whole family involved since we’re often more inclined to follow through on a task if it was our idea in the first place. Put the list of actions somewhere accessible so that it can be referenced often. As actions are completed, mark them off (ah the sense of accomplishment).

And then she asks, “Are you game for this activity?”

Lixo cooling off on the slate floor of the shower, it’s the coolest place in the house on a 40 degree day.

I’m game for most things, but I hate making lists.

I’ll have to think about that. If I do it it will be on this blog with updates. Getting the whole family involved, I checked with Lixo, he’s on, not happily but he’s on board. He’s all the family I’ve got and has been warned that he will eat all his cat food before he gets more.

Let’s face it, Lixo is a cat, he views the world differently from us hummins.

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He knows if the cat dish is full or empty.

#1 :: A new fridge to reduce the electricity gobbling monster I have currently. – √

#2 :: Change the element in the shower head. The current one only works on Low and Off, which is good for saving energy, but the with winter only a few months away, when the water is intolerably cold, I do like a Hot shower in the winter. I have the element, it’s in the little white plastic bag in the ‘tooly’ section of my junk drawer. It’s been there for a few months now… procrastination.

#3 :: I haven’t got a three yet.

I live from day to day and don’t make many big plans. But here is the story on the fridge (reprinted from Life is a Labyrinth, my personal blog).

“Last night one of my students told me of his plans, to finish his project at work, get involved in Carnaval, take his holidays and get married to his long term girlfriend. But to do three of these things he needs a lot of money, he then informed me that English teachers are on the expendable list. Two more lessons until Carnaval and that’s it.

But the sun shines.

Having polar bears in the kitchen is not recommended

He wanted to know if I could use a fridge. Now the fridge I have works, but has to be defrosted manually every couple of weeks. If I don’t preform this ritual, I have polar bears roaming the kitchen at night. But it has kept my beer cold for the last year. The fridge I have been offered is like a limousine compared to the truck that graces my kitchen at present. And the price is unbeatable, the last two lessons free and R$100. It is almost new, It still has the warranty adhesive.”

I collect the fridge tomorrow night. So, challenge accepted and unlocked. You’ll note the little green tick √ (check for our American cousins) beside it on the list.

Now I need more coffee, it helps me do stupid things faster.

Saturday Satire on Eco-Crap

Saturday Satire