Latest Inuit culture Stories
As their icy Arctic habitat melts, polar bear mothers and their cubs are forced to swim long distances, which expose the cubs to higher mortality rates than cubs who do not have to swim as far, a study shows."Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears' feet, forcing some to swim longer distances to find food and habitat," co-author of the study, Geoff York of World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told Reuters.Polar bears are not naturally aquatic creatures. They rely on ice or land...
A team of international scientists has found that all living polar bears descend from a single mama brown bear that lived 20,000 to 50,000 years ago in modern-day Ireland.The scientists from Britain, Ireland and the U.S. analyzed DNA samples from polar bears in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia, and compared them to DNA obtained from teeth and skeletons of 17 ancient brown bears that were found at eight cave sites across Ireland. The results revealed that every individual Polar...
A District Court Judge has ruled that the US Fish and Wildlife Service acted correctly in listing polar bears as a threatened species, rebuffing a pair of opposing legal challenges to the creature's classification on the endangered species list.Environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, sued claiming that global warming and melting sea ice should afford the polar bear greater protection on the endangered list, while the state of Alaska and Safari Club International...
Russia, reneging on an agreement made with the United States allowing a quota of 29 polar bears to be hunted, posted a statement on its website saying it will not allow the animals to be hunted in its far north polar region. "A decision has been taken on the government level that Russia will not be using its quota," said the statement found on the personal website of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. A deal reached by a Russian-US commission was approved last month by the Chukotka governor to...
University of Alberta researchers Péter Molnár, Andrew Derocher and Mark Lewis studied the reproductive ecology of polar bears in Hudson Bay and have linked declining litter sizes with loss of sea ice.The researchers say projected reductions in the number of newborn cubs is a significant threat to the western Hudson Bay polar-bear population, and if climate change continues unabated the viability of the species across much of the Arctic will be in question.Using data collected since...
A short-term victory for polar bears came from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Thursday, but outraged local leaders said the ruling would cost jobs. Royal Dutch Shell said it has put off plans to drill off Alaska's coast this year after the EPA ordered further study on the impact."Despite our best efforts, critical permits continue to be delayed, and the timeline for getting these permits is still uncertain," Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Peter Voser told AFP as he...
Scientists studying polar bears around the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, were amazed to witness one polar bear that swam continuously for more than nine days, covering some 426 miles, in search of sea ice. The scientists said this endurance feat could be the result of climate change. Polar bears are known to swim between land and sea ice floes to hunt seals. But the researchers said that increased sea ice melts push polar bears to swim much farther, risking their own health and future...
Environmental groups accused the Obama administration on Thursday of failing to ensure the survival of polar bears, after the administration declined to list the Arctic animals as endangered."The Obama administration delivered a lump of coal to the polar bear for Christmas," said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity in a statement.The administration has "sacrificed sound science for political expediency," the AFP news agency quoted her as saying.The Center for...
Researchers say polar bears could face brighter future"When I first picked up the cub, she was biting my hand," explains wildlife biologist Bruce Marcot. He was trying to calm the squirming cub while its sedated mother slept nearby.In the snowy spring of 2009, Portland-based Marcot traveled with several colleagues onto the frozen Arctic Ocean north of Alaska to study and survey polar bear populations. From their base of operations at the settlements of Deadhorse, next to Prudhoe...
The Obama administration is setting aside more than 187,000 square miles (120 million acres) along the northern coast of Alaska designating it as a "critical habitat" for polar bears as a result of a partial settlement in an ongoing lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Greenpeace against the Department of Interior. The total, which includes large areas of sea ice off the Alaskan coast, is about 13,000 square miles less than in a...
