Climate Change will have huge Impact on Polar Bear Population

If this happens, it will wipe out large polar bear population.

The assessment, by the global Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species, confirmed the polar bear’s current status on the at-risk list as “vulnerable” to extinction.

Polar bear populations are likely to fall by more than 30 per cent by around mid-century as global warming thaws Arctic sea ice, experts said on Thursday in the most detailed review of the predators to date.

The shrinkage in sea ice, which in September 2012 was the most severe since satellite records began, will make it ever harder for polar bears to catch seals that live on the ice, the report said.

IUCN pointed out that if more than five months out of the year are ice-free, the bears are forced to fast for longer, “which is likely to lead to increased reproductive failure and starvation in a few areas”.

“Based on the latest, most robust science, this assessment provides evidence that climate change will continue to seriously threaten polar bear survival in the future”, said Inger Andersen, Director General of IUCN.

The polar bear, she warned, “is the canary in the coal mine”.

Bear populations in Canada’s western Hudson Bay and Norway’s Svalbard archipelago are among those most at risk, according to Magnus Andersen, an expert at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

In both time periods, polar bears predominantly occupied sea ice, although land was used during the summer sea-ice retreat, and during the winter for maternal denning. The main threats affecting these mushrooms are “habitat loss and degradation, mostly from changing land use practices”. IUCN is actively working with those countries, providing scientific data and advice to help implement the agreed plan in the most efficient and cohesive way possible.

The latest update of the IUCN Red List reveals 23,250 threatened plants, animals and fungi out of 19,837 species assessed, with others already considered to be extinct or having vanished from the wild.

Polar bears play an important role in the livelihood of indigenous people of the Arctic, and are essential to maintaining the ecosystem balance in the Arctic region.