What do endangered polar bears eat

Polar bears in the wild can live to be 30 years of age, but this is rare. Most adults die before they reach 25 years. The conditions developing in Hudson Bay are such that females will no longer be able to birth and successfully raise a little of cubs. When this happens, the adult bears will survive until they die of old age and the population will be doomed. Scientists are fearful that this pattern is also starting to happen in the more northern polar bear populations as the amount of Arctic ice continues to shrink.

Polar bears are in serious danger of going extinct due to climate change. In , the polar bear became the first vertebrate species to be listed under the U. Endangered Species Act as threatened due to predicted climate change. The Secretary of Interior listed the polar bear as threatened but restricted the Endangered Species Act's protections, and thus the polar bear's future is still very much in jeopardy.

The chief threat to the polar bear is the loss of its sea ice habitat due to climate change. As suggested by its specific scientific name Ursus maritimus , the polar bear is actually a marine mammal that spends far more time at sea than it does on land. It's on the Arctic ice that the polar bear makes its living, which is why climate change is such a serious threat to its well-being.

Polar bears are being impacted by climate change in several ways. Po pulation sizes are decreasing: In southern portions of their range around Hudson Bay, Canada, there is no sea ice during the summer, and the polar bears must live on land until the bay freezes in the fall, when they can again hunt on the ice.

While on land during the summer, these bears eat little or nothing. In just 20 years, the ice-free period in Hudson Bay has increased by an average of 20 days, cutting short polar bears' seal hunting season by nearly three weeks. The ice is freezing later in the fall, but it is the earlier spring ice melt that is especially difficult for the bears.

They have a narrower time frame in which to hunt during the critical season when seal pups are born, and average bear weight has dropped by 15 percent. The bears have fewer cubs, and of the cubs they do have, the frequency of survival to adulthood is decreasing. In addition, the interval between successful litters is growing.

As a result, the Hudson Bay population is down more than 20 percent. The patterns seen in Hudson Bay are beginning to occur now in more northern populations and is especially well documented on the north coast of Alaska, but appears to be the case worldwide. Sea ice platforms are moving farther apart: The retreat of ice has implications beyond the obvious habitat loss. Remaining ice is farther from shore, making it less accessible. After each summer, the trend seen in the Arctic is for sea ice to be farther from shore, making it necessary for polar bears to swim increasingly long distances from shore to reach the ice.

Worse, the last remaining sea ice is over deep and unproductive waters that yield less prey. In , biologists discovered four drowned polar bears in the Beaufort Sea.

Never before observed, biologists attributed the drowning to a combination of retreating ice and rougher seas. As a result of rapid ice melt in , a female polar bear reportedly swam for nine days nonstop across the Beaufort Sea before reaching an ice floe, costing her 22 percent of her weight and her cub.

As climate change melts sea ice, the U. Geological Survey projects that two thirds of polar bears will disappear by Food scarcity is increasing: As sea ice disappears for longer and longer periods during the late summer, polar bears are left with insufficient time to hunt. Polar bears can only survive in areas where the oceans freeze, allowing them to hunt seals living under, on, or in the frozen polar ice cap. The reduction in ice platforms near productive areas for the fish eaten by seals is affecting the seals' nutritional status and reproduction rates.

Early map population history indicate much larger territories prior to becoming endangered. Their habitat includes both land and sea ice. Often polar bears live on ice and drift from one area to another. Massive areas break off and shift locations, sometimes putting mother and cubs in danger. In fact baby polar bears can become stranded when blocks drift far apart since cubs cannot swim long distances.

Climate information facts indicate global warming is responsible for altering polar bear habitat, the animals they eat, their behavior, life cycle, and life span. Hunting harvests by indigenous villages are also impacted. Except in captivity, scientific statistics indicate they may suffer extinction by year To save them conservation efforts must attack the problem head on. Through evolution polar bears have adapted to the Arctic. Their ecosystem is the most sensitive to climate change.

Their favorite foods include the ringed and bearded seal which is plentiful in the Arctic. Polar bears will eat sea birds and their eggs if available where they live. Their diet occasionally includes smaller whales such as the beluga and the walrus. Their eating habits include scavenging for dead animals including different types of whales and fish. The polar bear is an important part of Arctic food chain.

They are excellent hunters from both land and sea. From a distance, standing polar bears scope out their prey. Patiently waiting near a seal's breathing hole, they bite the head with their sharp teeth when the seal emerges.

Hunting for their food using underwater tactics is another strategy. Submerged they will swim towards an exit in the surface, suddenly surface, and attack any seal resting nearby. In captivity they eat whatever diet is prepared for them. Polar bears very rarely catch seals in open land, open sea or underwater.

Polar bears have an incredible sense of smell which allows them to locate a seal breathing hole. These are holes in the ice which seals use to come up to breathe. Once a polar bear has found one they crouch nearby in complete silence until a seal appears. This method of hunting is known as still-hunting. Polar bears can wait for several hours in complete silence and stillness when waiting for a seal to appear in the breathing hole.

Garbage, berries, seaweed and more Polar bears may attempt to find alternate prey on shore, including muskox, reindeer, small rodents, waterfowl, shellfish, fish, eggs, kelp, berries and even human garbage. Bears attracted to communities by garbage or stored food may come into conflict with people. More difficult prey Occasionally, the bears will hunt narwhals, beluga whales and adult walrus. Did you know? Don't move! The polar bear often relies on "still hunting" -- patiently waiting next to a hole in the ice until it senses a surfacing seal.

Hunting by smell Using its sense of smell, the polar bear will locate seal birth lairs, and then break through the lair's roof in order to catch its prey.