Why beloved polar bear may face bigger risk than previously thought
A new study rejects the long-held belief that the state of 'walking hibernation' would help polar bears weather climate change.
A new study rejects the long-held belief that the state of 'walking hibernation' would help polar bears weather climate change.
The embattled polar bear may be at greater risk from climate change than previously thought, according to a聽three-year study conducted in the southern Beaufort Sea.
The new study refutes the long-held belief that polar bears can resort to a status of "walking hibernation" to managed energy loss during periods of increased fasting as a result of diminished food stores.
While warmer months bring bountiful harvests to more southern climes, polar bears' access to food supplies become more scarce during the summer due to reductions in聽sea ice. Research from the 1970s suggested that "walking hibernation鈥� helps polar bears weather these periods of limited food, but the study published on Thursday in the journal Science rejects this idea.
鈥淲e haven't known until now whether bears really reduce their metabolism in summer, which, if they did, may have offered a limited buffer from some of the negative effects of ice loss," said lead author John Whiteman of the University of Wyoming.
The study found that activity and temperature patterns recorded for polar bears in summer were typical of food-deprived mammals rather than hibernating mammals.
Karyn Rode, U.S. Geological Survey research wildlife biologist in Anchorage who was part of a polar bear fasting study published in 2012, told The Associated Press that the new study confirms that polar bears can't conserve energy when they're fasting.鈥�
That's especially troubling considering the rate at which the Arctic has been warming due to climate change.聽As 海角大神鈥檚 Pete Spotts reported in December 2014:
The newly published study鈥檚 co-author, Steve Amstrup, a retired US Geological Survey polar bear researcher now affiliated with Montana-based Polar Bears International says it is already clear what needs to be done to save polar bears from extinction. 鈥淎ll of the studies in the world won't help us there. If we don't deal with greenhouse gas emissions, those of us who have been studying polar bears for our whole lives will be nothing more than polar bear historians,鈥� AP reported.
This report includes material from the Associated Press.