As the world we live in today continues to warm up, the problems surrounding the survival of the world’s beloved polar bear continues to grow. Over the past twenty years, we’ve seen a change in the number of polar bears in the Arctic and have witnessed a decrease of the amount of Arctic ice in the sea. Many scientist have come up with ideas to tackle the problem, but there hasn’t been a solution that has greatly influenced the predicament at hand. Ultimately, when discussing what to do about the endangered animals, it is valuable to consider what the species needs in order to remain; a healthy population and genetic diversity. Andrew Derocher, biologist at the University of Alberta, and the rest of his team have come up with a few ways to combat these needs. One of the main reasons polar bears are going extinct is because they aren’t getting the right amount of food they need to survive. Seals, the main food source for the polar bears, are animals that depend largely on the algae that grows on the ice of the Arctic. With the ice content slowly depleting, there isn’t enough seals to sustain the polar bear population. One of the …show more content…
The bold idea to establish grizzly surrogate mothers is one of the strategies proposed to counteract this problem and ensure a long lasting population. Grizzly bears are genetically similar to polar bears but are different because they have adapted to survive in warmer conditions. This is one of the main reasons they are still seen more often today. If the population of polar bears were to drop drastically, then we would be forced to look at the grizzly mothers as one of our only options. The transplant of polar bear embryos into grizzlies is all it would take to keep the declining population at a steady and safe