Polar bears are in dire straits due to human activity and global warming. Their hunting ground has shrunk and cannibalism is increasing
Today we celebrate the "Polar bear day” but there is no good news about the health of these animals. Russian scientists have highlighted a increased cannibalism among polar bears due to the melting of the ice and the scarcity of food.
The stress and habitat loss polar bears are undergoing continues to have dramatic consequences. As their hunting grounds shrink, many specimens attempt to approach human settlements to hunt for food (remember the images of bears in population centers in Siberia last year?) Or are even forced to become cannibals.
And, guess what? It is our fault! The rise in cases of polar bears killing and eating each other in the Arctic is occurring due to melting ice and human activity that has further restricted space for hunting.
To say it is Ilya Mordvintsev, researcher at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of Moscow and expert in polar bears. As reported by the Russian news agency Interfax, Mordvintsev stated that previously cases of cannibalism among polar bears happened rarely while now they are recorded quite often.
Speaking at a presentation in St. Petersburg, Mordvintsev suggested that the behavior is likely due to a lack of food.
"In some seasons there is not enough food and the large males attack the females with the cubs."
The increase in cases could then be due, at least in part, to the fact that more people today work in the Arctic than in the past, which also makes it possible to report the phenomenon more.
There is for example the area from the Gulf of the Ob to the Barents Sea, where polar bears used to hunt, which is currently a busy route by ships carrying LNG (liquefied natural gas). There growth in the activities of energy companies in the Arctic is giving the final blow to an already very difficult situation for bears.
Another Russian scientist, Vladimir Sokolov, who led numerous expeditions with the St. Petersburg-based Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, said polar bears were affected by unusually hot weather on the island of Spitsbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago in Norway, where there were not enough ice and snow banks. Remember that these are fundamental conditions for bears as they need sea ice to be able to move and find food.
Rising temperatures in the Arctic and melting ice sheets also tend to force polar bears to head south in search of food, making it more likely for them to come into contact with human settlements.
In short, the situation, and it has been known for some time, is not at all rosy. As the WWF reminds us on the occasion of this day, we risk losing 30% of the polar bear population in the Arctic by 2050.
Will we do something concrete to combat global warming by saving polar bears and many other species as well as ourselves?
Fonte: Guardian/The Moscow Times
Read also:
- The horrifying image of the undernourished polar bear
- It is not a stuffed animal, but a starved real polar bear (PHOTO)
- The terrifying image of the polar bear forced to hunt among the rubbish
- The polar bear is also at great risk of extinction due to the hand of man
