by Emma Swedenas, vet. major, 1st year 2nd semester
-How does the climate changes affecting the polar bears?
-Human interaction, how does it affect the polar bears?
Latin
name: Ursus Maritimus
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
The polar bears are the largest terrestrial carnivore in the world and are dependent of the ice for hunting seals. Without ice - no food - extinction.
You can find polar bears around the arctic poles. The bears prefer the
so-called leads. It is fissures in which the bear hunting seals.
The average temperature is –36 in the winter and 0 in the summer. The
water temperature is around –1,5-2 degrees. They are walking long distances
for hunting seals and will be forced to walk longer to find good hunting
ice.
In BBC News Thursday, 9 January 2003 you could read an article about
how the global warming is affecting the polar bears. The article made
me very upset and I started to think about the consequences.
The article by Helen Briggs BBC News science reporter warned for the global
warning. “The bears can be extinct within 100 years”
The ice is melting in a rate of 9% per decade. The polar bears can live
with small changes from year to year but they can not live without the
ice.
Dr Andrew Derocher once said ” As the sea-ice disappears, so will the
polar bears”
The polar bears are top predators and can change the entire arctic ecosystem.
British polar expert Dr Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge says
the bear faces a gloomy future unless it is able to change its habits.
"It could be that a polar bear could adapt to a new habitat and adopt
habits like the brown bear in Alaska which hunts salmon in streams and
other small animals on land," he said.
I think we have to do something before it is to late. We are aware of the problems, but what can we do to prevent the extinction of the polar bears? It is our responsibility to rescue the bears. We are their biggest enemy. This leads me into my next question.
- How does human interactions affect the polar bears?
Polar bears occasionally do not kill each other. Nor are they infected of diseases and as I mentioned before they are the top predators. But they have the worst enemy of them all. The human.
The polar bears have been hunted for thousands of year. Mostly for food,
clothes and of religious reasons. Commercial hunt of the polar bears started
in the century of 1500 and was biggest 1700. Between 1950-1960 the number
of killed polar bears increased very rapidly because aircraft and motorboats
were used for the hunt.
Today there are international rule sayings that hunt with aircraft and
motorboats are strictly prohibited.
The hunting was the most usual death for the bears during this time.
Thanks to this hunt limitations the number of bears increased from 10
000 to 25 000 individuals. The number of males and females are equal.
Nowadays the bears are hunting by arctic people for food or clothes. The
bears that are attacking humans or villages are also killed. Unfortunately
is the poaching in Russia very high.
According to Andrei Boltunov, Russian Research Institute for Nature Conservation,
"The only region where people frequently meet bears is coastal areas
of Chukotka (Russian Northeast, coast of Chukchi and Bering Seas). In
Alaska poaching appears to be less of a problem. According to Scott L.
Schliebe, Polar Bear Project Leader, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska:
"Poaching is essentially a non-issue in Alaska, although the first
investigation in many years involving a non-native killing a polar bear
is currently under way. The illegal sale of raw parts or unhandicrafted
polar bear parts have shown up in some investigations and prosecuted although
the level of this activity is uncertain, it is believed to be minor and
not driving the harvest
The hunting is now very limited in Canada and USA and prohibited in Norway and Russia.
Pollutants of the environment is also one of the human interactions affecting
the polar bears.
Leak of oil can destroy the ability of the fur of keeping warm. Poisonous
leaks from the whole world reach arctic through wind and rivers and because
of their position as top predators they are more exposed than other species.
In the research “Ecological risk assessment of persistent organic pollutants
in the arctic” can you read about the toxic organochlorines and (Ocs)
and biphenyl (PCBs) and how they expose the top predators in the arctic.
There is also a comparison between the polar bears in Svalbard and the
polar bears in Canada. The amount of PCB is higher in the bears in Svalbard
because in the Canadian bears there is a higher antibody titres against
influenza. It also depends on metabolising capability, capacity of the
prey the bear is feeding on and the bear itself. The methods used to collect
these facts were sampling procedures, ecological studies, experimental
studies and monitoring studies.
I think this is a good way to find out problems and I hope we can figure
out what we can do to protect the bears from these toxic chemicals. Maybe
we can give the polar bears in Svalbard injections with antibody titres
against influenza? You can read more about this research at:
www.elsevier.com/locate/toxicol
Conclusion
As we all know the humans are the greatest enemy of the polar bears. Both
direct and indirect.
One of the worst enemies of the polar bears seems to be more or less over
in form of poaching. Thanks to the international rule.
But still one remains and is going to melting away from us. The sea-ice.
Dr Derocher that follows the bears for se how they adapt to the climate
changes said:
“ The climate predictions coming out are showing massive changes in sea-ice
distribution.
We’ll certainly lose polar bears in a lot of areas where we currently
have them . Ice conditions in the Beaufort Sea, for example, are already
changing dramatically”
As the research told us the bears are also affected of the pollutants.
I hope we can help them through studies and experiments that learn us
more about the polar bears. The king of the arctic.
I hope there really is some way to solve this problem. I do not want to live in a world without these wonderful animals and I do no not want to be the one taking their lives.
Sources:
www.polarbearsalive.org
www.polarcentrum.grm.se/djuronatur/isbjörnar/
www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2642773.stm
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/01/030108071248.htm
www.defenders.org/wildlife/new/pbear/poaching.html
www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-06-18-polarbears_x.htm
Skaare et al. (2202) Ecological risk assessment of persistent organic
pollutants in
the arctic. Toxicology 181–182 (2002) 193–197