Polar Bears Eating Young Due To Shrinking Sea Ice: Scientists

thestar.com:

Scientists say shrinking Arctic sea ice may be forcing some polar bears into cannibalizing young cubs. So far this fall, tour operators and scientists have reported at least four and perhaps up to eight cases of mature males eating cubs and other bears in the population around Churchill, Man.

Read the whole story: thestar.com

Comments

[ConstitutionallySpeaking]

06:21 AM on 12/10/2009

Polar bears population numbers are at or near ALL-TIME highs. An inconvenient FACT the authors of the article conveniently forget to mention.

Polar Bear males have ALWAYS killed young polar bears - Just like your male house cat will often kill young kittens, male gerbils will often kill young gerbils.

It is called NATURE - things like this happen all of the time. The propagandists (like the authors) however, laking any REAL facts, use these emotional appeals to manipulate the gullible and those too lazy to do their own research.

[mergina]

11:44 AM on 12/04/2009

I bet Sarah Palin is saddened to hear this since it will mean less polar bears to hunt from a plane or helicopter.

[jimrs6]

09:16 PM on 12/03/2009

When you scare them with phony data and bad powerpoint presentations, how do you expect the bears to react?

[HankRearden]

05:45 PM on 12/03/2009

Which is better? Eating them as a food source or dropping them from skyscrapers?

[doawkins]

04:29 PM on 12/03/2009

Canadia sells over 800 polar bear hunting permits a year. We have no worry of extinction.
Eating each other? That happens in a lot of carnivourious species.

I wish the city slicker writers would look up some biology before they make claims using drama.

[Mum]

07:16 AM on 12/04/2009

This city slicker may be a little bit more educated than you are. For the majority of species, mothers (particularly mammalian mothers) eating their own is nearly always the result of some stress in the environment - either not enough food, or the young being born in a condition that makes it unlikely that they would survive. There is nothing that says that we should not worry about extinction, either of the polar bear or our own species.

[GOPfreedSlaves]

09:43 AM on 12/04/2009

it wasnt mothers eating their young, it was adult males. this happens in ALOT of species, including doemstic dogs. do domestic male dogs also suffer from lack of ice due to climate change?

buy a 3rd grade science book.

[mattyd123]

01:17 AM on 12/03/2009

We need to act. It is time to educate our youth.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/05/31/tv-network-tells-kids-when-their-carbon-footprint-says-they-should-die/

[Squeezer55]

12:49 AM on 12/03/2009

There are two issues with this story .

1. Polar bear males will kill and eat any cubs they can catch. There is a documentary shot about ten years ago that showed a sow with cubs trying to get away from a male that was following them. It managed to catch one of the cubs and eat it. Linking natural behaviour to global warming is disingenuous.
2. A lot of studies about polar bears have been done in Churchhill and the findings have been extrapolated to continent wide status. The findings in Churchill are indicative of Churchill only. I have been to Churchill and I have worked on Baffin Island, Baker Lake, Igloolik, Pond Inlet, Chestermere and Repulse Bay which has a polar bear migration zone. I always made it a practice to take global warming stories with me when I went up to work and I would discuss them with the people who actually live there, year round as opposed to experts who specialize in flyovers and 3 week summer sojourns. Every single elder I talked to believes that polar bear population is actually increasing. Who do I believe- no contest - i go with the people who live there and not those in ivory towers.

[middleofthemiddle]

12:23 PM on 12/03/2009

This is just more scare tactics from the climate change g@ng.

[TobyPLD]

09:39 PM on 12/02/2009

Lies.

[Tom95134]

09:38 PM on 12/02/2009

Note that this indicates it is males that are killing the cubs. Maybe this is not a case of food but a case of not wanting the competition. Or not wanting a cub fathered by a different male in its territory.

This killing of cubs by males has been observed for a long time in lions in Africa. It's how they make sure their own offspring survive.

[KIVPossum]

04:07 PM on 12/03/2009

The killing of cubs by male polar bears has also been well documented.

[Mum]

07:21 AM on 12/04/2009

Even in the best of times, environmentally speaking, male polar bears have made dinner of polar bear cubs. The added stress of a shrinking habitat and the subsequent loss of hunting and feeding opportunities will certainly increase the predation of adult polar bears on vulnerable cubs.

[BannedNBoston]

01:03 PM on 12/02/2009

Its called a SUN CYCLE. Mars polar ice is melting and and Neptunes moons polar ice is melting.
A sun cycle goes for 1,400 years.
Does the sun stay exactly the same or does it vary in intensity?

[Joe Caps]

11:28 AM on 12/02/2009

If you don't support setting up an exchange to trade carbon credits, you want polar bears to eat their babies.

[ReturnOfTheTruthTellaPod]

10:18 AM on 12/02/2009

Looks like the scrubbing bubbles are moderating on HP again.

[John Mainstream]

09:21 AM on 12/02/2009

Show a polar bear eating a helpless sea lion for fair and balanced reporting.

[Virgil Kane]

07:45 AM on 12/02/2009

I don't think you can blame polar bears eating each other to global warming. It's a really hard environment to live in as polar bears go for months without food. Older polar bears usually die of starvation from not being able to hunt, not drowning in the ocean. The introduction of high powered rifles and illegal hunting practices have been more threatening to the polar bear population than global warming ever could.

[annecros]

05:40 AM on 12/02/2009

Male bears do this to induce the female to go back into heat, thus ensuring that he gets some and that the offspring will carry his genes. Sometimes the behaviour can be attritubited to overcrowding in the environment. Tom cats do it, wolves do it, chimpanzees do it, gorillas do it. By the way, this is objective and observed natural science, that has been reproduced and verified MANY times over.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Wild-Animals-705/Animals-kill-young.htm

"Infanticide has been found in many species, including humans and other primates, cats, dogs, whales, rodents, insects and fish. http://www.ratbehavior.org/infanticide.htm gives the following reasons for infanticide: to gain food; to gain increased access to physical resources like food, nesting sites or space; to avoid caring for unrelated offspring; to bias the sex ratio of the litter. Adult males may kill a female's young to increase his chances of mating."

[femalevet1977]

11:28 PM on 12/02/2009

and for the pro choice advocates...the humans do it too.