A series of recent studies conducted by a team of researchers from the American Museum of Natural History indicate that global warming has pushed a number of polar bears to change the way they eat and hunt. The Arctic sea ice, which has been diminishing every year, has made it difficult for polar bears to continue with their long-standing hunting habits.
While arctic sea ice forms and melt each year on a seasonal basis, global warming has caused ice formation to start later in the year. Moreover, changes in temperature have also caused the ice to melt earlier, leaving the polar bears with no choice but to spend more time hunting on land. The studies were conducted by observing groups of polar bears in the Hudson Bay area in Canada. To survive, the bears have resorted to more flexible hunting and foraging habits. Instead of their usual diet, the bears have resorted to eating both plants and animals found on land.
"There is little doubt that polar bears are very susceptible as global climate change continues to drastically alter the landscape of the northern Polar Regions," says Robert Rockwell, the Museum of Natural History's research associate for the Department of Ornithology. "But we're finding that they might be more resilient than is commonly thought."
Polar bears usually like to prey on marine animals such as seals, using arctic ice as platforms to conduct their hunts. The bears usually lie in waiting on top of arctic sea ice waiting for the seals to surface. Once the seals try to climb aboard the floating ice platforms, the bears strike to catch their prey. In the Hudson Bay area however, the bears have started to eat berries and mushrooms along with animals such as snow geese.
The new data comes from a series of three studies. The first, which was published early last year revealed that polar bears were starting to hunt snow geese. The second paper, which was published during the summer of 2013, analyzed data gathered from studies conducted on polar bear scat. The data showed that the bears were also eating snow geese eggs as well as large animals like caribou. The third paper, which was published late last year indicated that the bears were also eating local vegetation to supplement their diet. The three papers show definitive evidence that diminishing amounts of arctic sea ice are affecting the lives of these polar bears dramatically.
