Transcript:
Over the past few decades, the population of polar bears in Hudson Bay in western Canada has dropped dramatically.
Archer: “In recent years, compared to the late 1980s, there were about half the polar bears there in recent years.”
Louise Archer is a biologist at the University of Toronto-Scarborough.
She and her colleagues recently published a study that blames climate change for the decline of population.
The problem comes down to food. Each winter, polar bears stroll onto the frozen ice in Hudson Bay, eating seals and obesity in the following months before melting the ice in the summer.
Bears have little food on land, so it is important to eat enough every winter.
But as the climate warms, it's getting harder.
Archer: “Sea ice melted earlier this year and is later refrozen… So we have seen polar bears spend about three to four weeks on land since the 1980s. This means three to four weeks to hunt on ice and build these fat reserves.”
Without this food, bears are unlikely to reproduce and the cubs are less likely to survive. Therefore, climate change puts this iconic species in danger.
Report Credit: Ethan Freedman/Chavobart Digital Media
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