Amazing Polar Bears
They have an amazing sense of smell. Polar bears heavily rely on their great sense of smell to hunt their prey, according to a 2017 study published in Scientific Reports. It’s estimated that they can smell a seal on the ice from up to 20 miles away. They are the only bears considered to be […]
Baby Polar Bears
Baby polar bears are known as cubs. In the wild, they are born in the shelter of their mother’s den. Isn’t he so cute and fluffy? Polar bear babies start out tiny, but they grow up to be huge, some of the largest bears on our planet! Baby polar bears are known as cubs. In […]
Bears on ice
The Arctic Circle is home to the largest bear in the world: the polar bear. You may be surprised to learn that the polar bear is actually considered a marine mammal. While they’re born on land, they spend most of their life on sea ice. This is where they hunt and mate. They’re dependent on […]
Polar Bears Now Eat Dolphins, Thanks to Global Warming
Faced with a rapidly changing habitat, polar bears are adapting with a new entrée: For the first time, a polar bear was seen preying on a white-beaked dolphin carcass that had been trapped in the ice in Svalbard, a group of Norwegian islands in the Arctic Ocean. In April 2014, a male polar bear with […]
How Many Polar Bears Are Left in the World
Due to centuries of hunting practices and the destabilization of arctic habitats, there have been growing concerns about the future survival of polar bears. While hunting has long been an issue, global warming has done a number on polar bears’ habitats recently. In fact, the World Wide Fund for Nature (or WWF) estimates that there are only […]
Melting Sea Ice
Imagine you have to walk through ice and snow all day for most of the year. You’d work up quite an appetite — and get hungrier the more distance you’d cover. That sums up the life of a polar bear. Living in the icy Arctic, they prey on fat-rich mammals like ringed seals to sustain […]
Polar bears numbers will decline dramatically by 2050
Polar bear numbers could drop by a third by mid-century due to disappearing Arctic sea ice owing to climate change, a comprehensive new study has found. The current global population of polar bears is estimated to be around 26,000. The bears use the ice as a platform to hunt seals, the fat-rich prey they depend […]
Causes and Effects of the Climate Change
The planet is warming, from North Pole to South Pole. Since 1906, the global average surface temperature has increased by more than 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius)—even more in sensitive polar regions. And the impacts of rising temperatures aren’t waiting for some far-flung future–the effects of global warming are appearing right now. The heat […]
Climate Change Will Scramble Polar Bears’ Diets
Eggs and berries are bad news for polar bears, a new study finds. The news may be even worse for climate-change deniers. As you may have seen, climate-change deniers frequently comment that even if sea ice melts and polar bears can no longer eat seals, they’ll just start munching on goose eggs and berries. Well, […]
Polar Bears threatened by climate change
Climate change has emerged as a more urgent issue than ever, especially considering the Trump administration’s moves to roll back Environmental Protection Agency guidelines on carbon emissions, including those for coal-fueled power plants, as well as . Animals such as polar bears find themselves at the heart of the crisis. Some reports say a third […]