One result of melting Arctic ice is that
polar bears are forced to swim more often and further than ever to forage for
food.
New research by BYU biologist Blaine Griffen
finds the increase in swimming could permanently affect polar bear populations,
leading to smaller bears, reduced reproduction rates and even increased risk of
death for the bears.
"Bears can more than double their body weight during the springtime foraging season
when they hunt seals on the ice," Griffen said. "As the sea ice melts
earlier and earlier, polar bears are
forced to swim more and more, both in frequency and distance, to reach seal
populations. The time they have to forage is getting cut short and this has
huge energetic costs."
According to Griffen's research, recently
published in Polar Biology, it costs polar bears five times as much energy to
swim as it does to walk the same distance. That cost became enormous in one
case Griffen studied, where a female bear swam 687 kilometers over nine days:
the bear lost 22 percent of its body weight and, worse, lost the nursing cub
that had started the journey with her.
"Their entire world is driven by
energy," Griffen said. "Anything that places that extra energetic
strain on the bear will affect its ability to survive."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!