Polar Bear Climate Change

The Effects of Climate Change on Canadian Polar Bears

Although climate change has had severe impact on the Canadian population, the melting of the Canadian Arctic ice caps has proved to be detrimental to the five subpopulations of polar bears in Canada, which are found in the Arctic Archipelago, Beaufort Sea, Hudson Bay and James Bay region. (Clark). Polar bears are dependent upon sea ice coverage to be consistent, and because of the recent change in climate, they are becoming a more at risk species (Stirling and Parkinson). In The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, they reported that the world climate change will continue to warm, it will only get worse and the primary cause of

This is a cause for concern because it means that not only are polar bears spending longer amounts of time on land, but they are also having more human interaction. A polar bear is not used to seeing humans on a regular basis, unless they are in captivity, and may perceive them as a threat (Freeman and Lee). Although there are not many reports of polar bear- human interaction that have been fatal, the reports from the Inuit communities have stated that the bears are increasingly becoming more aggressive. (Freeman and Lee). The reason for this is because a hungry polar bear is willing to prey on humans more so than any other bear (Stirling 55) they could even result to cannibalism because they are so famished. If polar bears continue to move and stay inland for a longer period of time, the shift in the dynamics of an ecosystem will be dramatic

As polar bear population decline so does the population of seals which is a fatal cycle for polar bears, because without ringed or bearded seals, polar bears cannot survive and will be pushed inland. The fallout from the bears being pushed onto the mainland could be detrimental to the Inuit population that are in coastal regions of the ice caps, as bears have been reported to be increasingly more aggressive with humans, it is only a matter of time before the interactions become fatal. Now, not only do they have to adapt to warmer weather, but they also have to deal with the diminishing of the land that they inhabit. Polar bears run the risk of becoming extinct, because without the large ice surfaces, they will have no place to live. It is largely believed that polar bears have adapted to new conditions once, and would have no problem doing so again, however this is utterly incorrect. The process of evolution takes years to occur and cannot happen overnight, therefore, polar bears cannot simply just adjust back to the warmer weather. Not only will the polar bears lose their land but they will also lose their hunting ground and will not be able to sustain the same diet. The detrimental effect to polar bears living on the