Climate change is negatively affecting animals
Scientists have observed that polar bears, struggling to adapt their hunting methods to melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, are facing starvation.
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Canadian and U.S. researchers have studied how polar bear hunting patterns are adapting to climate change in the melting Arctic Ocean. According to the BBC, the study involved tracking 20 polar bears for three years using GPS and camera collars, while also collecting blood samples and weighing them.
Emphasizing that sea ice mostly melts due to climate change during the late spring and early summer—the polar bears' hunting season—researchers revealed that the species becomes too exhausted to eat the prey they find after swimming for long hours.
THEY ARE BECOMING EXHAUSTED
During the summer months when sea ice has completely melted, 19 polar bears that swam to find prey or fed on berries, bird eggs, and grass lost approximately 11 percent of their body mass by the end of the period, averaging 1 kilogram per day.
In contrast, the 20th polar bear, which spent most of its time resting and fed on the remains of dead animals it encountered, gained 32 kilograms by the end of the period.
Pointing out that bears are exerting more effort by swimming more due to increasing glacial melt rates, study co-author Anthony Pagano stated, "One adolescent female polar bear started sleeping on top of a beluga whale carcass after taking a few bites from it."
Pagano said that polar bears are not getting efficient results from the different hunting strategies they have adopted due to the melting ice, and that their chances of survival in the face of starvation are decreasing.