Sentences with phrase «increasing polar bear cubs»

Not exact matches

[20] For the polar bears that currently den on multi-year ice, increased ice mobility may result in longer distances for mothers and young cubs to walk when they return to seal - hunting areas in the spring.

Polar bears are one of the most sensitive Arctic marine mammals to climate warming because they spend most of their lives on sea ice.35 Declining sea ice in northern Alaska is associated with smaller bears, probably because of less successful hunting of seals, which are themselves ice - dependent and so are projected to decline with diminishing ice and snow cover.36, 37,38,39 Although bears can give birth to cubs on sea ice, increasing numbers of female bears now come ashore in Alaska in the summer and fall40 and den on land.41 In Hudson Bay, Canada, the most studied population in the Arctic, sea ice is now absent for three weeks longer than just a few decades ago, resulting in less body fat, reduced survival of both the youngest and oldest bears, 42 and a population now estimated to be in decline43 and projected to be in jeopardy.44 Similar polar bear population declines are projected for the Beaufort Sea region.45

The only thing that could be more upsetting than images of an adult polar bear eating his cub is the fact that it's a scene that's occurring with increasing frequency throughout the Arctic.