Someone made a giant error, whether deliberately or not, by making the polar bear the apex charismatic megafauna to represent the perils of global warming.
Even before Knut the polar bear cub became famous in 2007 breeding populations in most of the Arctic had been growing for at least a decade. Compounding the falsity of the presentation were the pictures of polar bears seemingly trapped on small pieces of ice.
Ahem. The scientific name for the species is Ursus maritimus, the sea bear.
Anyhoo, the bears on Svalbard are fat and sassy which is a good thing as a fat bear is generally a healthy bear.
From the BBC, January 29:
Scientists expected the opposite, but polar bears in the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard have become fatter and healthier since the early 1990s, all while sea ice has steadily declined due to climate change.
Polar bears rely on sea ice as a platform from which to hunt the seals that they rely on for blubber-rich meals. The bears' fat reserves provide energy and insulation and allow mothers to produce rich milk for cubs.
Researchers weighed and measured 770 adults in Svalbard between 1992 and 2019 and found that bears had become significantly fatter.
They think that Svalbard bears have adapted to recent ice loss by eating more land-based prey, including reindeer and walruses.
The discovery, published in Scientific Reports, was particularly puzzling because of the impact of climate change in Svalbard.
During the same period that this research was carried out, global temperature rise has increased the number of ice-free days per year in the region by almost 100 - at a rate of about four days each year.
"The fatter a bear is the better it is," explained lead researcher Dr Jon Aars from the Norwegian Polar Institute.
"And I would have expected to see a decline in body condition when the loss of sea ice has been so profound."....
....MUCH MORE
Additionally bears, like people, are omnivores and will eat just about anything. The ecosystems that run into trouble are those where the top predator will only eat one kind of prey and should the population of that food source decline the predator population will collapse.
In many areas of life it is good to be a generalist.
