Polar Bear Affair

How do they actually live?

Polar bears look very affable. Polar bears have been made quite popular by media. In fact, we see bears drinking colas in TV advertisements.

Unfortunately, there are only 22 to twenty seven thousand polar bears now left in the world out of which 15,000 live in arctic Canada. But, due to global warming there won’t be many left till 2060. After that they will be only seen in zoos, according to reports of World Wide Fund for nature. Well, even arctic wilderness will be a thing of the past, if global warming continues to exist at the same pace. Global warming has been a crime created by human beings. It has led to melting of arctic ice making sure that bears lose their natural habitat.

These bears are also not able to live the same lifestyle as before due to global warming. In fact, they also don’t get much time for hunting seals, their favorite food, this is because arctic springs arrive later and summers have extended in duration. The ice on the arctic shelf has also become shallower. Its width has reduced from 4.8 meters to only 2.7 meters. The size of these bears has also decreased due to pollutants. Now the bears are smaller in size and weight. This has been observed by Canadian scientists. Inspite of their numbers being affected by pollutants, polar bears are still one of the favorite preys for hunters. In Canadian arctic there are quotes for hunters. So, almost 500 bears get killed every year. These polar bears exist in 5 different places called Canada, Russia, Alaska, Norway and Denmark. Arctic spring has become delayed by three weeks now due to which bears are not left with an ample hunting time. Ice could also diaper completely from the largest European breeding ground for bears which is Spitsbergen located near Norway

Norway offers complete protection to bears since 1973 where their numbers have increased by 100% to reach 2000 recently. But, this area has higher pollution levels than Canadian arctic, which causes concern for the health of the bears. The color of the fur of a polar bear is not white. It looks white because the hair shaft of every bear is without any pigment with an empty core. This hollow core reflects light quite similar to snow which explains the white fur.
The polar bears generally like to stay lonely. It has a huge weight of 770 to 1500 pounds. The females only weigh 330 to 550 pounds. It is also half in size as compared to a male. It is the largest animal in the bear world outweighing other bears by 400 pounds. It is double the size of the much feared Siberian tiger. It also has an elongated nose and skull in comparison to a brown bear. Polar bear is the most meat eating bear in the family of bears with a diet consisting of bearded and ringed seals. A polar bear kills a skull by biting its head with its teeth and then breaking the head of the prey.

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