CHURCHILL, Canada —
Sprawled on rocky ground
far from sea ice, a lone Canadian polar bear sits under a dazzling sun, his
white fur useless as camouflage.
اضافة اعلان
It is midsummer on the shores of the Hudson Bay, and
life for the enormous male has been moving in slow motion, far from the prey
that keeps him alive: seals.
Every year from late June, when the bay ice
disappears — shrinking until it dots the blue vastness like scattered confetti
— the bears must move onto shore to begin a period of forced fasting.
But that period is lasting longer and longer as
temperatures rise.
The whole annual rhythm of the polar bear is in
peril, and birth rates are dropping as they scavenge for food.
“There could be a beluga whale carcass they might be
able to find, (or a) naive seal near shore, but generally they’re just fasting.
They lose nearly a kilogram of body weight every day that they’re on land,”
said Geoff York, a biologist for
Polar Bears International (PBI). An AFP team
joined him on an expedition.
In the Arctic, global warming is occurring three or
four times faster than elsewhere in the world, recent studies indicate.
According to a 2020 report published in the journal
Nature Climate Change, this means the near extinction of this iconic animal is
approaching: From 1,200 individuals in the 1980s, the polar bear population in
western Hudson Bay has dropped to about 800 today.
These days, this super predator of the Arctic
sometimes has to feed on seaweed, as a mother and her cub were seen doing not
far from the port of Churchill, the Manitoba town and self-declared “polar bear
capital”.
They are also moving closer to the cities. In
Churchill, the bears a few years ago began frequenting the waste disposal site,
a source of easy — but harmful — food for them. Since then, the town has taken
precautions. The dump is now guarded by cameras, fences, and patrols. The
emergency number for the wildlife protection unit is posted on many walls.
When they get an urgent call, Ian Van Nest, the
provincial officer of the unit, and his colleagues jump into their pickup truck
armed with a rifle and a spray can of repellent. Sometimes the bears can be
scared off with just “the horn on your vehicle”, Van Neste said. Other times,
the animals need to be sedated, then kept in cages until winter rolls around
and they are freed.
The fate of the polar bear should alarm everyone,
said Flavio Lehner, a climate scientist at
Cornell University, who notes that
the Arctic is a good barometer of planetary health. And since the 1980s, data
show, the bay’s summer ice pack has decreased by nearly half.
Read more Odd and Bizarre
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
