Lately, scientists have remarked that despite polar bears’ uncanny ability to survive and thrive in freezing cold water, this unfortunately doesn’t help them in other environmental challenges. When the food supply for polar bears decreases, they appear to be incapable of slowing down their metabolism to adapt to this changing environment. Merav Ben David, a co-author of the study and part of a team of University of Wyoming researchers whose field in the Arctic was headquarters for the new report, explicated that many of his colleagues thought it impossible to complete the study, until it was finally proven that it could be done.
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO THE BEARS
Put simply, the study was intended to reinforce or eviscerate the notion that polar bears may be capable of resisting the malheurs of food displacement or reduction throughout the summer months by some innate physiological mechanism.
One of the bears under study swam for nine consecutive days, continuously, spanning a distance of almost 400 miles. This is the greatest distance a polar bear has ever been documented swimming.
WHY WOULD A BEAR EXPEND SO MUCH ENERGY?
A polar bear’s fasting period can last for up to eight months, sometimes done in a sort of hibernation-walk. But swimming is another level of energy output altogether. Increasing human activity in the Arctic is warming its waters, forcing the polar bears to expend much more energy than usual throughout the ice-free period, and this leaves no time for hibernation. These are the thoughts of a senior wildlife specialist with the World Wildlife Fund named Sybille Klenzendorf.
DETAILS OF THE STUDY
In order to complete this maximally complex research, researchers regularly checked up on the body temperatures and movements of 26 polar bears in and around the Beaufort Sea during the summers of both 2008 and 2009. Collars installed on the bears were used in conjunction with implanted tracking devices.
FINDINGS
What they found is that when there is no sea ice flowing over the waters favored by seals, polar bears’ main prey, polar bears are deprived of their food and become dangerously malnourished. When the bears were recaptured seven weeks after study’s end, one bear had lost 22% of her body mass, in addition to her little cub.
So this isn’t just science. It’s also really sad, guys.
