> From the WeatherWatch archives
New pictures show that polar bears are beginning to cannibalise each other as global warming destroys hunting grounds.
The images, taken in Hudson Bay, Canada, around 321km north of Churchill, Manitoba, show a male polar bear carrying the bloodied head of a polar bear cub it has killed for food.
Polar bears usually subsist on seals, which they hunt from a platform of sea ice.
But the melting of sea ice as a result of rising global temperatures has made it more difficult for polar bears to hunt seals at sea, confining the bears to land.
This has led to malnourishment and starvation as polar bears are unable to build sufficient fat reserves for winter.
Drowning is also more common as bears are forced to swim further out to sea to find food.
– NZHERALD.CO.NZ
Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 9 Dec 2009.
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WOODY on 9/12/2009 10:42pm
I understand is not uncommon for male Polar Bears to kill the offspring of females they have not mated with, its all part of keeping their genes in the pool. I believe Lions do it and many other species too. If I am misinformed then please post up. Cheers
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David New Brighton on 9/12/2009 11:28pm
…and Lions do it too, quite right!…and besides the numbers of polar bears has increased dramatically in recent years…
…but never mind the millions more people third world countries who, as a result of details revealed in the Addendum of the leaked Danish Treaty Papers, which reveals that those countries will have to pay twice as much as devloped countries to the I.M.F.who will now take over from the United Nations ( which was from the pit of hell, in itself)…and who are now up in arms about it right now!
Check out this latest embarrassment to COP 15 at http://www.infowars.com
They were not told about Climategate, but instead they were told they were going to be the benefactors of this climate scam, for that is what it is…..all because the main stream media, by enlarge has refused to tell it or otherwise skim over it, like it wasn’t important!
Privately, they wring their hands saying it’s a tradgety that they can’t explain the global cooling of the last 10 years….Publicly, they come out and declare it has been the warmest decade for donkeys ages, inspite of the fact that there has been a warming that plateaued out 15 years ago and has been in decline for the last 10 years…
Polar caps increase and decrease cyclically and from season to season, and taking pictures when they are melting during summer proves nothing, except they are melting…
And as for Al Gore saying Polar bears can’t swim!
Yeah, Right!
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EarthWise on 11/12/2009 6:34am
Anyone who still denies the accelerated climate change that humans are causing is very ill informed. Polar bears are an endangered species and they can only swim so far. They do drown when they are unable to swim the increasing distances between pack ice – this is what Al Gore would have said. Polar Caps are melting and not just in summer (if you researched the actual facts) and what will all those people say when the water rises and they lose a place to live and grow their crops?!!
Plus global warming is a misnoma – it is now referred to as climate change as we see more extreme weather and some places may get cooler weather, while others warm up – this depends on changes in seawater currents and other local factors that contribute to a specific regions weather. The average temperature is however increasing.
I hope people stop putting their heads in the sand as this issue is only going to get worse the longer people take to accept it and change their selfish ways. We all owe it to future generations to become part of the solution not add to the problem through denial and ignorance!
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SW on 9/12/2009 9:28pm
It could also be about overhunting of seals beyond a sustainable level?Is there the same number or more seals now?As I have an open mind about this,if the melting is occuring,it could be cyclical changes of the suns output coupled with balancing acts over time.We have recorded readings no more than 100-150 years so who knows what happened then.
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Guest on 9/12/2009 11:53pm
…numbers of polar bears have increased in fifty years, seals are also culled, and as per the previous reply – it’s not uncommon for males to hunt other cubs, so why the drama?…
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Ken Ring on 11/12/2009 12:03pm
There is a moratorium on hunting PBs now, which has lead to overpopulation in the Hudson Bay area. They are cannibalising each other because they are competing for food. It is nothing to do with global warming – there is more than normal ice there at the moment. Please, enough already of the brainwashing that goes “because of global warming..the bears are depleting/increasing, the glaciers are receding/advancing, wind is blowing the washing off the line, the dog ate my homework, my fingernail broke..
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