Polar Bears Find A Way To Adapt Despite The Loss Of Ice

Scientific American

With the climate change, animals have lost their homes, and perhaps, even their lives. Everyone has been talking about the polar caps melting and how polar bears are starting to lose the only home they’ve ever known.

But nature has its way of helping those in most need. Scientists found themselves impressed with how these massive creatures are finding ways to cope. They continue to hope for the best, but at the same time, the future may not be so bleak for these polar mammals.

Polar bears are known as the furry-faced poster animals of the climate crisis that the world is experiencing. They have found how to intelligently survive even in a habitat that’s losing massive amounts of sea ice. This was according to a new survey made by experts who have observed these massive creatures.

The researchers were in Greenland’s southeast coast and found that the common 100 days of frozen sea water is being replaced by what they observed as a floating landscape of ice. These came from the fronts of glaciers. As these float closer to the ground, they are able to give the bears with ample solid ground to hunt for an entire year.


The floating glaciers have provided this genetically-distinct species of bears to continue on with their lives. This comes as a shock because they compared the present conditions with that from 30 years before. One would have assumed that this would spell their end.

“Our findings are hopeful,” shared a researcher of the study. “I think they show us how some polar bears might persist under climate change.”

Fact is, Southeastern Greenland is known to be an extremely difficult place especially for those who conducted surveys in the area. For Kristian Laidre, lead author of the study, he had identified the bears, but it took him seven years to track the illusive population of bears. He saw several hundred of them move through the land. The tricky part was that the team did it in helicopters during stormy weathers. At the same time, they needed to rely on survival techniques such as burying fuel containers in the snow where a helicopter could land. The places these happened were few and far between.

They were able to track the movement of 27 bears and compared them with 30 years of previous data collected. They also relied on DNA samples and anecdotal reports that came from subsistence hunters who were able to see them from time to time. At times, even see their carcasses.

“They’re an important group because they can help us look into the future,” Laidre told Science Magazine.


As for the female bears, they seemed to produce smaller and fewer cubs. This may be a sign of them adapting to the chances. This could also connote sparser hunting conditions found on the slushy sea ice and glacial runoff.

The polar bears hunt for food from the freshwater chunks of ice, and this is the first time the researchers have observed this sort of behavior. This could possibly be proof that under-prevented global warming conditions, these creatures living glacier fronts such as Greenland and Svalbard, may have actually found a way to adapt to the new hunting conditions.

These numbered polar bears are said to be the most susceptible to climate change. They are the ones most affected because they live further south. This is definitely good news because the bears have found ways to cope.

Watch the video below and learn more…

 

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