People around the globe are currently busy discussing the kind of impact climate change can have on life on this planet after seeing a photo of an excessively thin polar bear. The said photo was shared last month by Kerstin Langenberger, a photographer from Arctic Dreams photo, on her Facebook page.
It was a photo showcasing an emaciated polar bear with prominently protruding bones. The photo was taken in the Svalbard region of the Arctic Ocean. Other than posting the photo, Langenberger has also noted that she has felt that the summers are gradually becoming warmer resulting in melting of ice, which in turn is forcing polar bears to spend more time on land.
According to Langenberger, studying the habit and habitat of these creatures allowed her to understand that the fat polar bears are almost exclusively males who stay on pack ice all through the year. She added that the females, on the contrary, need to live on land for giving birth and are often extremely thin.
Langenberger said that further retreating of the pack ice towards the north every year at times forces the female polar bears to remain on land where they don’t get enough food. She informed that she has rarely come across gorgeously fat mothers with gorgeously fat babies. On many occasions, she has come across horribly slim bears, who were exclusively females. The one in the photograph published by her is also a female.
The polar bear in the photo appears to be as slim as a skeleton and has an injury on her front leg. Langenberger feels that the animal got injured when trying to hunt a walrus after getting stuck on land.
The photographer stated that although many reports are suggesting that the bear populations in Svalbard are increasing, her own experience testify a different story. She said that she had seen a number of dead bears in the region.
Life has become extremely difficult in the Arctic for a number of species. Experts are saying that the appalling status of the bear seen in the image captured by Langenberger might have links with the recent climate change. The climatic conditions of the region at present stand in stark contrast to what it was 30 years back.
“MeMeMine is a fully-automated spambot which posts precisely the same
“skeptical” phrases on any number of articles about climate change.”
You mean, like you do about melting ice caps as proof of AGW?