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http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB113452435089621905-vnekw47PQGtDyf3iv5XEN71_o5I_20061214.html
Is Global Warming Killing the Polar Bears?
By JIM CARLTON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 14, 2005; Page B1
It may be the latest evidence of global warming: Polar
bears are drowning.
Scientists for the first time have documented multiple
deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely
drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean
amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears
spend most of their time hunting and raising their
young on ice floes.
In a quarter-century of aerial surveys of the Alaskan
coastline before 2004, researchers from the U.S.
Minerals Management Service said they typically
spotted a lone polar bear swimming in the ocean far
from ice about once every two years. Polar-bear
drownings were so rare that they have never been
documented in the surveys.
But in September 2004, when the polar ice cap had
retreated a record 160 miles north of the northern
coast of Alaska, researchers counted 10 polar bears
swimming as far as 60 miles offshore. Polar bears can
swim long distances but have evolved to mainly swim
between sheets of ice, scientists say.
[polar bear]
Polar bears in Alaska face melting ice floes.
The researchers returned to the vicinity a few days
after a fierce storm and found four dead bears
floating in the water. "Extrapolation of survey data
suggests that on the order of 40 bears may have been
swimming and that many of those probably drowned as a
result of rough seas caused by high winds," the
researchers say in a report set to be released today.
While the government researchers won't speculate on
why a climate change is taking place in the Arctic,
environmentalists unconnected to the survey say U.S.
policies emphasizing oil and gas development are
exacerbating global warming, which is accelerating the
melting of the ice. "For anyone who has wondered how
global warming and reduced sea ice will affect polar
bears, the answer is simple -- they die," said Richard
Steiner, a marine-biology professor at the University
of Alaska.
The environmental group Greenpeace began airing a
30-second commercial yesterday in New York, Los
Angeles, Atlanta and other cities showing an animated
adult polar bear and a cub on a cracking ice floe. The
two bears, nowhere near land, slip underneath the
water. "Polar bears may soon be extinct because of
global warming," the voice-over states. It ends with
"Global Warming: It's the Real Thing," a takeoff of a
Coca-Cola Co. commercial featuring polar bears.
Some experts say that climate change may indeed be
shrinking the ice pack, but they dispute that
emissions are the main culprit or that significantly
cutting greenhouse gases would really make a
difference. "Whether humans are responsible for some,
most, or all of the current warming trend in the
Arctic, there is no proposal on the table that would
actually prevent continued warming or reverse present
trends," said Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the
National Center for Policy Analysis, a nongovernment
organization based in Dallas. "The question is how to
adapt to future changes in climate, regardless of the
direction or the cause."
In addition to documenting polar-bear deaths, the
Minerals Management Service researchers, Chuck
Monnett, Jeffrey Gleason and Lisa Rotterman, also
found a striking shift in the bears' habits. From 1979
to 1991, 87% of the bears spotted were found mostly on
sea ice. From 1992 to 2004, the percentage dropped to
33%. Most of the remaining bears have been found
either in the ocean or on beaches, congregating around
carcasses of whales butchered by hunters. In the past,
polar bears were rarely seen at such kill sites,
because they spent their time hunting their favorite
meal -- seals -- on sea ice.
[Global Warming ad]
A Greenpeace commercial parodies a Coke ad.
Marine experts consider the findings -- to be
presented at a marine-mammal conference this week in
San Diego -- an ominous sign. Some have warned for
years that a rapid thawing of the Arctic from global
warming could endanger species like the polar bear.
Already, a warmer Alaska over the past half-century
has been linked to increased erosion of rivers and
streams, insect infestations and the undermining of
pipelines and roads as the permafrost thaws.
Alarmed by the swift changes, the Alaska Inter-Tribal
Council, a consortium of the state's tribes, earlier
this month passed a resolution urging that the U.S.
government enact a mandatory program to reduce global
warming.
Some scientists predict polar bears could become
extinct within the next century because they have
adapted over the millennia to only hunting on ice. If
they try to swim in disappearing ice conditions to
catch seals, more are likely to tire and drown,
scientists say. Polar bears that stay onshore aren't
adapted to hunting land animals like caribou, which
are preyed upon by more-aggressive grizzly bears.
Polar bears also require more fat intake than most
food on land offers them, experts say.
"As the sea ice goes, that will direct to a very great
extent what happens to polar bears," said Steven
Amstrup, a polar-bear specialist with the U.S.
Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska.
Another study set to be released at the marine-mammal
conference shows what might happen to the Alaskan
polar bears over time. Researchers from the USGS, the
University of Wyoming and the Canadian Wildlife
Service found that the population of polar bears in
Canada's western Hudson Bay -- near the southernmost
habitat for the bears in the world -- fell to 935 in
2004 from 1,194 in 1987, a 22% drop. Researchers said
the decline -- the first recorded for these bears --
came in tandem with an extension by nearly a full
month in the time it takes for Hudson Bay to ice over
after the summer.
"Our findings may foreshadow how more northerly
populations will respond to projected warming in the
Arctic ecosystem," wrote Mr. Amstrup, a co-author of
the report.
Previous studies by the U.S. and Canadian governments
support a link between the decline in sea ice in the
Arctic and the ways polar bears try to adapt to their
surroundings. For example, researchers say polar bears
in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska and Canada used to
spend most of their lives jumping from ice floe to ice
floe in pursuit of seals. Only pregnant bears would
occasionally wander onto the mainland, in search of a
den.
But weekly aerial surveys by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service show that, over the past five years,
an unusually large number of bears have congregated
along the beaches. Between the coastal town of Barrow,
Alaska and the Canadian border, about 300 miles east,
researchers counted as many as 200 bears on land, said
Scott Schliebe, director of the Fish and Wildlife's
polar-bear project. Many bears could be seen gathered
around whale carcasses near villages like Kaktovik,
which lies in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
where the Bush administration is pushing for drilling.
Scientists measured the distances from where the bears
were gathered to the nearest ice sheets at sea and
found this correlation: The farther the ice was from
shore, the larger the number of bears were found on
land.
Scientists estimate there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar
bears world-wide, including about 2,000 that frequent
the Beaufort Sea off Alaska. The latest population
study by federal officials, in 1997, suggested the
Alaskan bear population wasn't endangered. An update
is expected by the end of next year.
Write to Jim Carlton at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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