Polar bears, known as the majestic creatures of the Arctic, are facing tough times as their icy homes melt away.
Scientists have discovered that as the Arctic sea ice disappears due to rising temperatures, these bears are struggling to find their main food source, ringed seals, which they usually hunt on the ice.
With less ice to hunt on, polar bears are spending more time on land, trying to eat things like bird’s eggs, berries, and grass. But, this diet isn’t good enough for them, and they start to lose weight quickly, which can lead to serious problems.
The situation in Western Manitoba, a key area for these bears, shows just how dire things have become. Here, the time without ice has grown by three weeks from 1979 to 2015. To better understand what’s happening to the bears, researchers followed 20 of them over three summers. They took blood samples, checked their weight, and even put special collars with GPS and video cameras on them to see what they were doing and eating.
What they found wasn’t very hopeful. Despite trying different ways to find food, like resting to save energy or looking for berries, almost all the bears in the study lost weight, some up to 11% of their body mass.
The story of the polar bears is a clear sign of how climate change is affecting our planet.
While hunting once threatened these bears, it’s now the warming world that’s their biggest challenge, changing the very nature of their Arctic home and making it hard for them to survive.
