WP: Experts Predict Polar Bear Decline (Global Warming melts habitat)

[Pirate Smile]

Experts Predict Polar Bear Decline
Global Warming Is Melting Their Ice Pack Habitat

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 7, 2005; Page A03

SEATTLE, July 6 -- As the pack ice that is the bedrock of their existence melts because of global warming, polar bears are facing unprecedented environmental stress that will soon cause their numbers to plummet, according to a report by a panel of the world's leading experts on the species.

In a closed meeting here late last month, 40 members of the polar bear specialist group of the World Conservation Union concluded that the imposing white carnivores -- the world's largest bear -- should now be classified as a "vulnerable" species based on a likely 30 percent decline in their worldwide population over the next 35 to 50 years. There are now 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears across the Arctic.


A 30 percent drop in the number of polar bears is expected as diminishing ice packs affect the bears' ability to find food and to reproduce. (By Subhankar Banerjee -- Associated Press)

"The principal cause of this decline is climatic warming and its consequent negative affects on the sea ice habitat of polar bears," according to a statement released after the meeting. Scientists from five countries, including the United States, attended the meeting.

"All of the evidence is heading in the same direction, and the trend is dramatic," said Scott Schliebe, who led the Seattle meeting and is polar bear project leader in Alaska for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "In a shrinking ice environment, the ability of the bears to find food, to reproduce and to survive will all be reduced."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601899.html

[skooooo]

1. so sad...

:(

[mom cat]

2. Bush doesn't care, and he doesn't care if you and I are next.

[Kool Kitty]

3. Bush doesn't realize that the whole earth is

connected. What befalls one of us, usually befalls us all. Environmentally speaking, that is.

[mom cat]

4. I'm sure they are planning for about 99% of us to die off..then they

can have it all to themselves. But this time the wise ones who are left won't save the overlords. I would rather die than tell them how to get in tune with nature. I would rather see tho humanoids perish and let the amoeba try again.

[Kool Kitty]

5. Looks like we could be headed there,

mom cat. Poor creatures all of us. The planet will survive.

[mom cat]

6. After the dinasaurs and us, I hope that the "power over" thing gets

bred out of the system. It just doesn't work.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. kick

[blindpig]

8. God's Dogs

is what the Sami call them. It is shameful that we do this, how will we atone?