Comments on: Polar bears two-thirds gone by 2050?

By: Benjamin Napier

Benjamin Napier — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:22:05 +0000

There were but 5000 bears in 1950, there are now 25,000. Keep in mind the polar bear is a recent variant of the Kodiak brown that evolved in the last 50,000 or so years.

There are many species of bear that have been eradicated such as the Kamchatka bear of north eastern Russia. This animal was problematic to man and probably had more to do with the late migration across the Aleution land bridge than any other sigle reason. Until man developed the throwing spear and arrow, the Kamchatka bear was truly at the top of the food chain.

The polar bear might succumb to mankind. That is how evolution works. We can preserve some in zoos if we wish.

I am believing that the cold will return and the bears will be migrating south. They cannot live on solid ice as the seals can’t break blow holes. The seals and the bears will move south. If that happens, the human-bear interface will be problematic. If folks are being attacked and eaten by bears, the idea of preserving them will not be nearly as attractive. They will be like the wolf, cool to see on TV but not going to be eating my kids.

By: deborahbyrd

deborahbyrd — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:15:00 +0000

Probably no way to know how it varied in the past …

By: sglasson

sglasson — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:55:55 +0000

I wonder how the polar bear population has varied in the past and in recent years.

By: deborahbyrd

deborahbyrd — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:34:42 +0000

Agree. It doesn’t seem as if there’s much we can do about Arctic melting, at this point.

The die is cast, apparently.

Deborah

By: Jorge Salazar

Jorge Salazar — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:10:28 +0000

Awareness of the problem is the first step to doing something about it. The challenges seem daunting though.

By: lindsay

lindsay — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:29:32 +0000

The caption for the photo should be, “How much less cute would this photo be if two of these polar bears were dead?”

Of course, you would probably word it better than that.

By: Deborah Byrd

Deborah Byrd — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:47:28 +0000

a p garcia … there aren’t too many parking lots in the Arctic …

It’s clear that humanity has come to dominate Earth. That’s not a good thing, or a bad thing. It’s just a reality. So one way of looking at this is that we - the humans - have a right to cause the population of another species to decrease by two-thirds. Some might believe that, since we dominate Earth, that is our right.

Another way of looking at it is that we - the humans - might take some care with other species. Perhaps our world will be richer, if we do what we can now to preserve diversity.

Deborah

By: a p garcia

a p garcia — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:35:10 +0000

I read an article that there are currently 25,000 polar bears. 25,000 X .666 = 16,650 polar bears that have somehow scummed. 25,000-16650 = 8350 polar bears in 2050. That is quite a bit in the baren, cold artic. These are adangerous, unpredictable beast and I would rather see one at the local ZOO than face to face in the parking lot.