Sentences with phrase «spring feeding period»

Across the Arctic, there has been only a marginal decline in total sea ice extent (Fig. 6) between March and June, the critical spring feeding period when polar bears require the ice as a hunting platform for gorging on young, fat seals.

As late April is the peak of this critical spring feeding period for most polar bear populations, this is when sea ice conditions are also critical.

This paper does not document starving or dying bears but merely found some (5/9) that lost weight when they should have been gaining, given that early April is the start of the ringed seal pupping season (Smith 1987) and the intensive spring feeding period for polar bears (Stirling et al. 1981).

Chukchi Sea and Southern Davis Strait bears, for example, are doing very well — contrary to all predictions — despite marked declines in summer sea ice because they have ample food during their critical spring feeding period when sea ice is abundant.»

Not exact matches

«These spring and fall transitions bound the period when there is good ice habitat available for bears to feed,» Laidre said.

Among the zooplankton, detritivorous components of the small size fraction (< 1000 μm) fed and reproduced actively during the same period whereas the large fraction resumed high metabolic activity in late March, well before the spring release of ice algae and phytoplankton bloom.