Churchill, Manitoba, Canada's northernmost seaport and "polar bear capital of the world," welcomes hundreds of polar bears each fall. They watch Hudson Bay there while sea ice forms. Bears cannot hunt for extended periods due to the growing sea-ice-free season in this region of the Canadian Arctic.
Canada's Churchill Warming Too Fast For Polar Bears
World ministers are assembling in Montreal, almost 2,000 kilometers to the south, for the UN biodiversity conference to negotiate a deal that would safeguard wilderness areas and stop the loss of nature due to human activity.
The Churchill bears' situation, however, represents the unbreakable link between protecting the natural environment and battling global warming as the polar bear develops into an icon of climate change. Simply put, it's getting too warm for polar bears in the world's capital of polar bears.
According to conservation specialists, bears may starve to death by 2050 due to the duration of the season without ice.
"Looking over the last couple of decades, it forms later and later and it breaks up earlier and earlier in spring," Dr. Flavio Lehner of conservation charity PBI told BBC News.
"So this season in between - where the bears are on land and can't take advantage of those hunting opportunities - that's is getting longer and longer, with warming."
Bears get their energy from eating seal blubber. Particularly mothers caring for cubs must ingest enough fat.
Researchers start to see effects on their reproductive performance after 180 days without sea ice. Lehner predicted that there would likely be reductions after then since they can no longer breed properly.
According to McCall, these omnivorous predators will consume nearly anything they can find on lands, such as berries, eggs, small rodents, and even reindeer, but nothing compares to that [high fat] seal blubber.
These modifications bring bears and people closer together, increasing the risk in areas like Churchill, where polar bears and humans coexist.
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The amount of time polar bears spend on land has increased dramatically over the past few decades, according to a US Geological Survey research that used data from satellite monitoring collars on more than 400 of them in Alaska.
Polar bears would only spend a few weeks onshore each summer in the 1980s, according to USGS research wildlife biologist Dr. Karyn Rode, quoted in the same BBC News article.
Many people now stay ashore for over two months every year.
Additionally, bear sightings have increased in the settlements along Alaska's North Slope.
The actions taken by every nation in the globe to cut emissions of the planet-heating gases that are transforming this region so quickly will ultimately determine the destiny of Churchill, its seasonal sea ice, and the hundreds of polar bears who live in Hudson Bay.
About Polar Bears
The biggest bear species on earth, the polar bear, is a real marine expert, Smithsonian Magazine said. Even their Latin name, Ursus maritimus, emphasizes their adeptness in and around water. Their oily coats naturally deflect water droplets, and they can swim up to six miles per hour. Because of their heavy layer of body fat, polar bears are ideally suited for survival in the planet's chilly, windy, and subarctic areas.
Scientists have discovered a new subpopulation of polar bears dwelling in regions including Canada, Alaska, Russia, Greenland, and Norway, adding to the 19 known subpopulations. According to PBI, there are around 26,000 bears left in the wild, although it is exceedingly challenging for researchers to obtain precise head counts for those living in isolated places.
Polar bears are listed as "vulnerable" on the Red List of threatened species maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to dangers associated with oil and gas drilling, tourism, commercial development, shipping, habitat changes, and pollution.
Polar bears are particularly affected by human-caused climate change because they depend on sea ice to hunt seals and other prey. Sea ice develops later in the fall and disappears earlier in the spring due to rising global temperatures, forcing bears to spend more time on land without easy access to calorie-dense food. As a result, Churchill's polar bear population has decreased by 30% since the 1980s.
Additionally, it is more difficult for individuals of various subpopulations to interact and reproduce due to the disappearance of sea ice. This lessens the genetic variety of the bears, which may lead to health problems. According to one scenario, polar bears may completely vanish by the year 2100 if humans are unable to stop the pace of climate change.
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