Scientists are concerned about the discovery that many polar bears in the Canadian Arctic are making marathon swims of several days in search of stable ice as the Beaufort Sea melts with climate change.
Between 2007 and 2012, Canadian researchers tracked 58 adult female polar bears and 18 young bears of both genders in the Beaufort Sea and 59 adult females in the Hudson Bay region. (Adult males weren't tracked because they often remove their collars and their necks are typically too wide to keep their collars on.)
They found the Hudson Bay bears rarely made long-distance swims.
But in the Beaufort Sea, when there was less sea ice, most bears made at least one swim of 50 kilometres or more (a marathon is 42.2 kilometres) – 69 per cent did so in 2012, when sea ice coverage hit a record low.
In fact, the researchers identified 115 long-distance swims in total during the study, 100 of them in the Beaufort Sea, with a median length of 92 kilometres or 3.4 days. On average, polar bears can swim at about two km/h.
While swimming, the bears rarely rest, said Nicholas Pilfold, lead author of the study.
"These bears are going for days without stopping."
You know it appears that somebody owes Charles Monnett an apology.
Oh and fuck you Sarah Palin!
Gryphen, you took the words right out of my mouth! Try 'splainin' that one, dumb twat!
ReplyDeleteHAH! She peddles herself as "the" expert when, in truth, she's doesn't know jack!
ReplyDeleteAnd what's with this:
"Media Idiots: Quit Making Things Up. Does My Daughter ALWAYS Have to Ding You On Your Constant Lies?"
Speaking of not knowing jack!
Sarah Palin dismisses the polar bears so easily when I thought that every life is precious. That belief should apply to all living things because when you upset the balance of nature, you are disturbing life for all of us.
ReplyDeleteBristol claims that God has a special plan for her to have children out of wedlock and act like a spoiled brat, but God cannot possibly be running over 7 billion personal plans for all of the people on Earth. If God or the incredible forces which created the universe, Earth and all life that evolved on it, that is quite a plan in itself-- if it was planned by design.
We all live in a delicate balance of nature which is something that should be respected. Filling our aiir, water and bodies with toxic chemicals is not helping. Neither is stupidity, which Sarah Palin uses as her excuse to attract attention-- and by extension, donations to her PAC. For Palin, today it's "let the polar bears die.'" Tomorrow, it could be something or someone else.
As we all know, Sarah is never on the correct side of an issue.
ReplyDeleteSarah has a post on any of the latest headlines in hopes of her name being mentioned when people google the topic of the day. Sometimes it works.
DeleteToday's opinion - Schilling being fired and transgender bathrooms!
Does she get paid for fb hits?
Sarah Palin and her fucked up family should be thrown into the Beaufort Sea and let their asses swim in seach for a piece of ice.
ReplyDeleteSarah's ass is as flat as the polar bear's butt.
ReplyDeleteReally? So many aspects of the topic to comment on and what is important to you is the flatness if her ass?
DeleteThat photograph makes my heart break. I don't know how to square the sadness of that image this morning.
ReplyDeleteMaybe replace it with one in which all the climate change deniers are dropped in the very same ocean (sans ice floes mind you) and told to swim to the nearest piece of land? We'd let them have those nifty orange survival suits mind you. I wore one of those the summer I was up at the Arctic Research Facility in Barrow. What a wonderful experience that was.
I was trying to get my daily runs in until I was told that bears had been spotted up at the Point. Then it just didn't seem prudent to be out meandering around!
We did go out with a guide to see what we could see.
Sadly, I didn't get a glimpse of a bear.
But I did find some yuuuuugggge tracks on the beach leading off into the water.
SO flipping cool.
I wonder these days if perhaps it's simply too late for us...as a species...you know what I mean? The damage is so great. And we are so many--to simply keep damaging.
Sorry. Philosophical this morning.
And that damn picture of the starving bear.
WHAT THE FUCK IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR SARAH PALIN TO GO AWAY? Sick to the back teeth of her.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a polar bear will bite her in the ass.
DeleteAre the polar bears losing body mass having to use energy to swim long distances?
ReplyDeleteI feel if you give that some thought you can figure it out all by yourself.
DeleteSwimming is after all an exercise prescribed by doctors to assist with weight loss.
According to a report I read recently, it's too much energy spent swimming and too little food, 5:52. A primary food source, seals, are also going farther because of a lack of ice. Also, on ice, the bears win, in the water, the seals win. So they are expending much more energy now AND finding less food.
DeleteI agree, Gryphen "Fuck you, Sarah Palin."
The ignorant-based denial by these idiots are a death penalty for these beautiful creatures, and likely much much more destruction awaits us if we don't wake up.
Mildred
Sarah's so hung up on the increased # of bears since 1960. I doubt pics of those bears would show them as malnourished and on the brink of death.
ReplyDeleteShe makes me sick. What a cold, cold person she is. Damn, I wish the freak would continue to starve herself to death.
The last few years we have had Polar Bears is Newfoundland. Look at Newfoundland on a map. It's not Polar bear territory. They are swimming a heck of a long way now.
ReplyDeleteThere's people like Sarah who scoff at this planet and its' problems. It's all bible based. That God has a bigger, better plan. And this is just a stepping stone to a better place so let's meanwhile piss on this planet when we can and derive all its' resources at the expense of animals, planet and whatever else keeps this planet thriving. Humans should by now know that if we were to become extinct the earth will go on. If its' other inhabitants leave, the earth goes off balance. I sometimes think we landed here and this is not our home. Or someone put us here to get our self destructive asses off their planet. Sarah is just a microscopic thingy in the great scheme of things yet she is somehow out there trying to deny facts for her fiction. And the sad thing is people follow her every word. Ya'll, we've been dumbed down for our own demise.
ReplyDeleteThis is sickening and the climate deniers should be ashamed but they have no shame after all anybody that would let a dog be used as a footstool does not care about animals or the climate
ReplyDeleteI'd hate to see a species go extinct because of willful ignorance. There are no second chances to get it right, and I fear it's too late already.
ReplyDeleteThis is why drowned bears are washing up on shore in Greenland.
ReplyDeleteWhat is of more concern is if the loss of sea ice will result in the bears starving to death like the one pictured.
Most worrisome to me is an article I read today saying that there is nothing that can happen that will cause polar bears to go extinct.