In Photos: Polar Bears Eat Dolphins Trapped in Ice

by Jeanna Bryner, Live Science Managing Editor | June 13, 2015 08:32am ET

For the first time, scientists have reported polar bears preying on white-beaked dolphins in Svalbard. The sighting, described in the journal Polar Research, is important because shrinking polar bearhabitat is expected to change where the animals can live, particularly in the area of Svalbard and the Barents Sea, the researchers say. Images captured of the Svalbard polar bears reveal their lives in the Norwegian High Arctic. [Read the full story on polar bears eating dolphins]

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Fewer polar bear cubs are being born in the Arctic islands, survey finds

Rapid reduction of sea ice level due to climate change hitting population as hunting ground recedes

Damian Carrington in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard

theguardian.com, Wednesday 28 May 2014 13.02 BST

The proportion of polar bear females around the Arctic islands of Svalbard who gave birth to cubs crashed to just 10% in 2014, according to a small scientific survey of the animals. It follows a series of warm years and poor sea ice.

The Barents Sea population of a few thousand polar bears is one of the biggest in the world. But global warming is rapidly reducing the extent of sea ice on which the bears hunt seals, their main food.

The annual survey undertaken by Jon Aars and his colleagues at the Norwegian Polar Institute was conducted in April, just after cubs and mothers leave their dens. They discovered that just three of the 29 adult females they tracked and examined had a cub born that year.

"This is a lower number than we would have expected," he told the Guardian. "Typically one third or more of the adult females have cubs from that year." But even this higher level is in long-term decline: annual records dating back two decades show that about half of adult females in Svalbard had cubs in the mid-1990s.

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Is this starved polar bear which died as ‘skin and bones’ the 'categorical proof' that climate change is wiping out the species?

• Experts found the carcass of a polar bear in Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean
• Lack of sea ice and seals forced the bear to search further afield for food
• Scientists claim climate change has reduced sea ice to record lows and is to blame for the death of this animal
• But some experts add that commercial trade in Canada is also to blame for falling polar bear numbers

The skin and bones of a male polar bear, that is believed to have starved to death, has been discovered washed up in Svalbard, in the Arctic Ocean. 

Experts claim low sea ice levels caused by climate change meant the bear couldn't hunt seals and this caused the bear to unsuccessfully search more than 150 miles for food. 

Climate change is said to have reduced sea ice in the Arctic region to record lows and is 'absolutely, categorically and without question' the reason why polar bears are dying out, according to one wildlife expert.

Dr Ian Stirling from Polar Bears International has studied polar bears in the region for the past 40 years. 

He told The Guardian that the way the bear was found, lying on its stomach, suggests that it starved to death and just dropped to the ground when it died.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2385930/Starved-polar-bear-dead-Norway-categorical-proof-climate-change-wiping-species-say-experts.html#ixzz2bTsUyO3c