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Jessica Robertson / USGS
Sea ice is critical habiat for polar bears, which use it as platforms from which to hunt seals.
Adult male polar bears preying on cubs and even females has long been observed, but recent sightings off Norway suggest that cannibalism may happen more often as warming temperatures reduce Arctic sea ice, a leading polar bear scientist says in a new report.
The conclusion is based on images and observations made of three separate cannibalism incidents in summer and early fall while the adult polar bears were on sea ice, which polar bears use as platforms to hunt seals.
Most previous cannibalism observations have involved polar bears on the shoreline and later in the year.
"The three observations we describe are different from most other reports of infanticide and cannibalism in polar bears because they took place between midsummer and early autumn, while some bears of all age and sex classes were still actively using the remaining sea ice as a platform from which to hunt," wrote Ian Stirling, a polar bear expert with Canada's environmental agency, and Jenny E. Ross, a photographer who captured images of an incident on July 21, 2010.
Dec. 10, 2009: Tourists visiting Churchill, Canada, were shocked to see an adult polar bear eating a cub. CBC's Mychaylo Prystupa reports wildlife experts say bear cannibalism is becoming more common due to changes in the food supply.
Because few earlier observations of polar bears on summer sea ice have been made, such cannibalism "may be relatively normal and possibly occurs more frequently than has previously been thought," the authors wrote in the study published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal Arctic.
"However, as the climate continues to warm and sea ice continues to break up and melt at earlier dates, thus making seals less available earlier in the summer, the frequency of intraspecific predation and cannibalism may increase," they added. "Similarly, as more ships go farther into the disintegrating ice to view and photograph polar bears, it is likely that similar instances of intraspecific predation and cannibalism on the sea ice will be reported more frequently."
Arctic 'not cooling as well as it used to'
Arctic sea ice follows a natural cycle of growing in winter and shrinking in summer, but in the last decade the shrinkage has spread.
Last September, "sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean fell to the second-lowest extent in the satellite record, which began in 1979," the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported last October.
Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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Only a dumb backward hick or Republican does not believe in Global Warming. Come to think of it , Republicans are dumb backward hicks. So logically, Republicans do not believe in Global Warming. Makes sense to me.
GLOBAL TEMPERATURES
Global temperatures have been holding steady for a decade or more – 1998 is still the high point
in global temperatures
Oh My! 2010 tied for ‘hottest’ year?! Relax, it is ‘purely a political statement’ -- Even NASA’s
Hansen admits it is ‘not particularly important’ -- Prof. mocks ‘hottest decade’ claim as ‘a joke’ -
- ’Claims based on year-to-year temperature data that differs by only a few HUNDREDTHS of a
degree’
Still Waiting On Warmist Rapid Response Team to Answer: ‘Global temp records from
HadCRUT & GISS show from 1910-1940 warming nearly as quickly as period from 1970-2000’
Stupid post of the day John. Resorting to cheap insults when you can't think of any facts.
No, it's not just a political statement, it's a fact with only a small margin of error. The average rate of warming (about 0.017 deg C per year) correlates very well with CO2 levels and model predictions. The 1910 to 1940 warming rate is high because of "cherry-picking" years that were unusually cool or warm; similar to the situation with 1998 (warm air temperatures due to El Nino).
That story didn't have any facts, just a lot of maybe's. Last I heard there are more polar bears than at anytime in recorded history!
It sure would be nice if Obama vacationed there.
The Donner party was a picnic compared to whats coming for you. Forget the bears. Just watch your own backs.
This is simply called nature. All living things need to eat wether it is something else or their own. If you are slow, old, in the way or on the bottom of the food chain then you will be consumed. If you are sad, deal with it.
What did the one cannibal frog say to the other frog while he was eating it?
Hey, we do taste like chicken.
guys enough on dems, GOP and pres. past and present. bears do what they have to do to survive, whether ist is a black bear, grizzly or polar. people do it too--soccer team crashes in the Andes Mts. Donner party in the 1880s in the rockies. we are to blame for the "global warming" and only we can stop it.
Nature is cruel in it's own right. However it would be great if we could feed them all the Wash D.C. politicians, starting with "You know who". Maybe, just maybe then something could be done by the people to get this country back on track and growing.
What is happening to the polar bears is a travesty. We need more people to support environmental groups that support saving one of the most beautiful creatures on earth. Global warming is an enormous threat (and it is not slowing down), but so are over fished oceans, polluted seas and illegal fur trade that kills the seals that polar bear eat. But the worst threat of all time, is man and his careless attitude about animals who live in far off places and are not often viewed by the public.
I find the polical jokes lack the sensibility, urgency and are without understanding of the scope of severe danger these polar bears really are in. Not one said, I would like to see a change in the polar bears lives. Or what can I do to insure that polar bears survive? We all like pictures of mother polar bears with their cubs, or seeing children receive a stuffed animal (polar bear) for a present. What about the many billions of dollars Coca-Cola has made off the image of polar bears with their commercials. We all like to take, take, take and give nothing back. The world as we once knew it is vanishing. Unless large groups of people step forward and work, or give money to fight the big corporations that imperil all our lives and we the people change our attitude towards the polar bears real life existence NOW, there are not going to be many polar bears left. What can you do to help the polar bear NOW while it is struggling just to get enough to eat???? In twenty years there will not be going to be lot of polar bears in the wild to be saved.
What can you do to help the polar bear NOW while it is struggling just to get enough to eat????
How do you do know how much they are "struggling" to get enough to eat. For a wild animal, there is always a struggle to find enough to eat. Your rantings sound like they come from a crazy person.
the polar bears are just fine .
Fact.
Why are Americans the only morons that believe in Global warming?
What would you do for a Klondike Bar?
i saw on animal planet where
a polar bear didnt make a kill and results were a froze to death (dead) animal and i see dead animal carcass on the roads often sooo why cant gov. state who ever maybe me pick up the dead feed the starvn and we take care of nature we sure as hell kno how to ruin it-- tell me why some 1 ,come on
Is this really surprising? Male black & grizzly bears have been known to kill cubs in the wild all the time, I doubt polar bears are that much different.
Or maybe the cubs just taste like chicken.
The VERY first sentence is all you need to remember: "this (action)has long been observed". This has been happening from the beginning of recorded polar bear activity!! To site 3 recent incidents as a reason to demand global change and trillions of funding is laughable!! My gawd, people, how stupid do you have to be to react to this garbage?
Where are the seals, the polar bears favorite dish?? Has a single scientist looked into the lack of fish in the area?? Not due to global warming but commercial fishing!! This is all food chain basics - polar bears to seals to fish...
No fish, no seals, polar bears will resort to more attacks on their own. Take a look at that and see what you find but there is little money in researching fish populations but tons of it in global warming!
Much more plausible than, they ate a cub because they were a tad too warm.
Mom of Many,
Where do you get this stuff? Has a single scientist looked into the lack of fish? There are many many scientists all around the globe intently focussed on lack of fish. Where have you been? There is probably much more money researching fish populations than there is in researching global warming. I have a family member who attends the meetings that determine which areas can be fished, which fish can be taken, etc. etc., and I can tell you that whole effort is well funded. Our government knows it is in everybody's interest to maintain as best they can the food resource of fish, but from what I'm hearing it is becoming a losing battle. All around the world people are having to drop down the chain and eat fish that used to be considered trash because the populations are declining or disappearing.
People who have the predispositon of right wingers have swallowed hook line and sinker all the well financed demagaguery being spewed by those who feel economically threatened by efforts to combat global warming and pollution.
look, we have someone that is really impotent! I have someone in my family that eats fish, does that count?
Unreal,
I must be rattling that little pea brain of yours since this is the second personal attack you've made. Great! People with little pea brains like yours need to be rattled some.
Female black widow spiders , eat the males , after they mate..No matter what the climate is like..
remember the cave wall drawing of a saber tooth tiger eating rachel welch -- you wanna b a tiger or a bear--we all gotta die
More gorebal whining hype . Smells like bull@!$%# to me .Run ! Run ! It's 1 degree average warmer than normal eeeeayyyyyygghhh !!!!
We might want to pay attention and take lessons. If we have any serious climate flips those fat hamhocks waddling through the Walmart parking lots are gonna start looking tasty.
alsophia, I was looking your name up in the dictionary the other day and found it! It said see jerk, I looked up jerk, and it said see alsophia theophilos and something about unshaven!
Unreal,
Go back in your basement and jerk. Try again on the meaning of my name. I think it is a little above your level of comprehension. In fact, I am sure it is.
Just more Polar Bear BS...they are wild animals that eat whatever is available.
your right
The beat goes on, yeah the beat goes on.
Man-made Global warming, blah, blah, blah,....Sea ice disappearing, blah, blah, blah...What are we gonna do, blah, blah, blah...Polar bears are eating each other, blah, blah, blah...We need to protect polar bears, blah, blah, blah...We know we're in an economic bind but, blah, blah, blah...We need to start feeding the starving polar bears, blah, blah, blah...Polar bears Good, man BAD, blah, blah, blah...Because Al Gore says so, blah, blah, blah...
You nailed it Jose lol
Lets have Obutthead go up there and study the problem and take that ape that he's married to with him ! Probably have to pump the poor polarbears stomach afterwards ?
Racist @!$%#
know it all,
Could you please identify who you are calling Obutthead? And the ape? If I were you I wouldn't be travelling up that far. I hear the polar bears really have a taste for racist biggoted idiots.
Is this the same man, that made the comment about women and hamhocks in walmart parking lot. Could this be the pot calling the kettle black?
unreal,
There was nothing racist, biggoted, or idiotic about mentioning hamhocks in parking lots. Try again. Looks like I've rattled your pea brain some more. Good. Don't lean your head out the window in rush hour traffic. That pea brain might roll out and get squashed by a city bus. I reread the post you mentioned and didn't see the word women. Are you a woman?
Blah...blah...blah..."The sky is falling"...'the sky is falling" We need billions in research funding!
Global Warming is killing Polar Bear, HOW IT DOESN'T EXIST!
That's like saying the tooth fairy is stealing my teeth!
Male animals will kill cubs,eat the meat and then mate with the female, its a a known fact ,a sick one but a proven known fact unlike the myth called man made global warming!
Melting polar ice cap or a frozen ice cap would get you the same problem!
Polar bears are mean,deadly predators of the ice and water and only the dumb of them die,this insures smartier better bears and not bears that would grow up and be an Al Gore or become lawyers or newspaper reporters of BS faked gobal warming is man made myths instead of facts like the ice caps have to melt and refreeze or our water would become so nasty !
the world is divided over global warming. I don't know which side is right. However, I do know that Big al gore has made hundreds of millions(dollars) off of it.
God, I wish he would move out of tennessee and leave tipper for me.
unreal-3070801
"the world is divided over global warming. I don't know which side is right. However, I do know that Big al gore has made hundreds of millions(dollars) off of it."
And apparently doesn't belive in it himself.
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/02/gores_carbon_fo.html
That's al the proof I need to know its al (gore) bull@!$%# .
You guys obviously can't see that the money put in the pockets of the corporate pollutors by avoiding regulations makes anything Gore made pale in comparison. The amount is probably in the billions.
So, with so much money at stake who do you think is going to be funding propaganda?
The headline should have been shown against a yellow background because this is one of my classic cases of yellow journalism I've seen in a long time. Male Polar Bears preying on cubs is extremely common, as many PBS documentaries have shown.
Apparently you didn't read the entire article. These are not cases of males preying on cubs. The only yellow journalism is in the comments section...
for all that deny that global warming is happening I ask you this question. The scientists that do conclude (which more of them are added to the list every day) that this is happening at a fast level I ask this. Why would they continue to talk of global warming and what is happening when they could accept the thousands of dollars offered to them by big oil and several government agencies to deny that this actually exists. One would think if you were offered LOTS OF MONEY to say that something is not happening when it truly is you would jump at the chance. AT least give it some thought...
Why accept thousands from "big oil" when you can get millions from the government,
http://digitaljournal.com/pr/266474
I think I did mention government agencies in my paragraph.... say YES to global warming as it is here and being Americans we will do something about it when it is too late...