For Polar Bears Contending With Climate Change, "It's Survival Of The Fattest"
Tagged Polar Bears Andrew Derocher, Univeristy of AlbertaHow melting arctic ice has made life harder for lean polar bears. Led by researchers at the University of Alberta, a new study in the Journal of Animal Ecology from the British Ecological Society finds that lately, due to climate change, it's only the fattest polar bears that survive the year. Polar bears have an unusual hunting period. Most animals stock up on food in the warm months, building fat reserves to get through the long, cold winters. But polar bears in Canada's Hudson Bay area do the opposite: their best food source is the arctic seal, which they can only hunt in the coldest winter months. In the winter and spring, the polar bears head on out into the bay, frozen over with ice, and begin hunting delicious, fatty seals. In the summertime, the ice melts, and the bears retreat off the ice...