We human may know that sea ice is vanishing, which resulted in higher sea level, more floods, and climate changes. Not only that, for the past few decades, Polar Bear, the icon of the Arctic, has been finding a hard time living as the sea ice is declining. At this rate of warming, those unfortunate polar bears will lose their home and hunting "platform" by 2050!
Most polar bears spend their entire lives on the "sea ice", hunting year-round, visiting land only to build maternal birthing dens. They prey mainly on cods and seals.
Sea ice is the foundation of the Arctic marine environment. Vital organisms live underneath and within the ice, which is not solid but in channels and tunnels large and small. Trillions of diatoms, plankton, and crustaceans all-around the ice column. In spring, sunlight penetrates the ice, triggering algal blooms, which they sustain a food web linked from small creatures like clams, sea stars, arctic cod, to seals, walruses, and polar bears.
Typically, polar bears were able to fast through the open-water season of summer and fall because hunting on the spring sea ice was so good, but now that the sea ice is available progressively shorter, it has forced bears to fast for longer periods. They do not grow as large, and some came ashore notably skinnier. Females gave birth less often and had fewer cubs. Fewer cubs survived.
If we help reduce the global warming, it is still not too late for polar bears, but if the world keeps hotter, they can eventually extinct - like we did to other animals…
ACTs Of Green
ONE SMALL CHANGE
-can make-
ONE BIG DIFFERENCE
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