Researchers wonder if Polar Bears are On Tract For Extinction Soon – Dispatch

Because of Arctic warming that has caused a significant loss of habitat due to melting sea ice; polar bears have been included under the Endangered Species Act since 2008.

According to the new report, in order to save the polar bears from extinction, the greenhouse gas emissions must be significantly reduced.

In the report, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service note “The single most important step for polar-bear conservation is decisive action to address Arctic warming”.

Rebecca Noblin, a researcher at the Center for Biological Diversity, explained that there are ways that could help slow down the dying off of polar bears, but the best one that would save these animals would be to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. The ice-free period is expected to lengthen after that. Because of the change in climate, continuous rise in temperature and melting of the ice, they are forced to return on land in order to find food.

Polar bears could disappear by the year 2050. The species has not been able to adapt to living off of land-based food, and the continuing loss of sea ice is what makes the situation particularly grave. Polar bears are good at feasting while there’s food, and fasting while there’s not, but their fat reserves can only last so long. The problem of climatic changes as well as the environmental plunders is both responsible for this stage of the heavy population reduction of these polar bears.

A polar bear struggling to jump between small pieces of ice. These visits will often end badly for polar bears.

University of Alaska professor and climate change expert Igor Polyakov mentioned that there might be fluctuations in temperatures, in relation to the Artic ice in the next 10 years or more. But irrespective of the scenario the conclusion is the same: some polar bear populations will sooner or later be affected or even go extinct. They also include protecting the animals’ dens from humans and minimizing the risk to polar bears from oil spills.

Unfortunately, the FWS draft polar bear recovery plan does not adequately address the clear and present threat offshore drilling poses to the Arctic, an omission that requires re-evaluation. This is essentially because polar bears are seen as an integral part of American wildlife.

“That’s not to say that we’ll lose polar bears completely out of the area, but we think that they’ll be at a greatly decreased distribution than what they now are”, Atwood said.

Only if the greenhouse gas emission were to become steady at a lower level, then there is a possibility of the polar bears surviving longer, as stated by the Fish and Wildlife Service. The newly announced plan will now serve as a roadmap for collective action by multiple USA agencies toward recovery of polar bear populations.