News Release : Polar Bear Population Likely to Become Extinct |
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January 1, 2008
Media Relations Office
93 Water Street MS #16
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(508) 289-3340
media@whoi.edu
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Enlarge Image Shrinking sea ice cover in the Arctic is making it harder for polar bear mothers to find food for themselves and their cubs. (Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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| Source: Media Relations
Within the month, the U.S. government must decide whether
to list the polar bear as an endangered species. The question is:
will such a declaration be too late because of climate change? A 2007 study by biologists, including Hal Caswell of the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), concludes that the declining habitat of
the bears—namely, the shrinking ice cover of the Arctic Ocean—makes it likely
that they will become extinct in the southern Beaufort Sea, near the coast
of Alaska and western Canada.
The population of bears worldwide is expected
to shrink by at least two-thirds of current levels. Using data from an
intensive U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
study, Caswell and former WHOI postdoctoral investigator Christine
Hunter (now
at University of Alaska-Fairbanks) determined that climate change is
dramatically hindering the polar
bears’ ability to find food and to reproduce. Polar bears need ice as a
platform to hunt for seals. As the Arctic Ocean lost
more ice cover for more days in 2004 and 2005, polar bear breeding and
cub
survival declined below the point needed to maintain the population.
With sea ice dramatically receding over the past decade, and
projections of
ice-free summers by 2050, it is hard to see a positive outcome for the
ice
bears. Caswell and Hunter collaborated on their reports with Erich
Regher, Steven Amstrup, and Michael Rundge of USGS and Ian Sterling of
the
Canadian Wildlife Service. In September 2007, they presented their work
to
administrators of USGS, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and to Secretary
of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne.
Related Links
» Oceanus magazine: Melting
Ice Threatens Polar Bears' Survival
» Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort
Sea: Demography and Population Growth in Relation to Sea Ice
Conditions
» Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea I: Survival and Breeding in
Relation to Sea Ice Conditions
» Who is Hal Caswell?
» Future Retreat of Arctic Sea
Ice Will Lower Polar Bear Populations and Limit Their Distribution
» New Polar Bear Findings
Last updated: November 20, 2009 | 
