Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 09/23/2009 - 08:08
Forums
Polar Bear Response to Sea Ice Loss

What is your guess about the age/gender of polar bears that are most affected by global warming?

Emily Rodriguez Period 3

Wed, 09/30/2009 - 16:28

Cristina Galvan

What a high level question! The research team here had to answer that question for me! So far, the data shows that in one population that lives in Hudson Bay that the very old and very young bears seem to be the most affected. However, in the Beaufort Sea (just north of Alaska), the data shows that mostly the 2-5 year old bears are affected. At this age, the bear cubs would have just left being with their mothers. This might be a challenging transition age for the bears. Currently, there are between 20,000 - 25,000 polar bears. The current estimate is that based on patterns of population decreases that by 2050 the population will decrease by 2/3rds.
Thanks for the great question! Keep them coming!
-Ms Galvan (with the help of Merav Ben-David, John Whiteman and Hank Harlow)