Is the polar bear's skinny body due to global warming?

(Baonghean.vn) - Anyone would be heartbroken to see a skinny, emaciated polar bear slowly dying on a land without a single piece of ice to find food. However, there are also many opinions surrounding this story.

A video of a skinny polar bear is causing a stir on social media.

Paul Nicklen, co-founder of the NGO Sea Legacy, wrote a message posted with the video on Instagram on December 5: “This is a heartbreaking scene that still haunts me. Nothing to eat. Muscles atrophied. Exhaustion. Death approaching and painful... There is a truth here: if the Earth continues to warm, we will lose polar bears and the entire ecosystem.

This adult male bear was not old, but it certainly died within hours or days. Is this mammal becoming a symbol of the dire consequences of climate change? Could it be a powerful force for us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

The video, filmed by Sea Legacy on Baffin Island in northeastern Canada, near Greenland, has been viewed millions of times in the past week. But scientists are asking: How much climate change is needed to make an animal extinct?

Mr. Jeff W. Higdon, a wildlife expert with more than 10 years of experience working in the Canadian Arctic, said: "The bear in the video was hungry, but according to him, its death was not due to the sudden disappearance of ice that prevented it from hunting. Because the east coast of Baffin Island has no ice in the summer. It is very likely that this bear was hungry due to health problems, specifically in this case, it could have had bone cancer." Mr. Higdon also regretted that Sea Legacy did not conduct an autopsy on the animal to clarify this.

A skinny bear tries to survive on the ice in Norway's Svalbard archipelago in August 2015. Photo: Kerstin Langenberger

In another post, Steven Amstrup, one of the chief scientists at PBI, a non-governmental organization committed to polar bear conservation based in the US and Canada, cautiously said that “malnutrition is the leading cause of mortality in polar bears,” which have very little food in the wild. Young bears that have not yet learned to hunt seals, old and injured bears, can suffer from malnutrition. The starving bear in the video could be related to old age, injury (such as a broken jaw that prevented it from eating), disease, or other factors that prevented it from catching prey.

Of course, there is no denying that global warming is a serious threat to polar bears. As sea ice disappears, polar bears are forced to retreat inland or go further out to sea where there is ice floes to hunt for seals and fish. However, these places often have little food, so polar bears are often short of food and are at risk of declining numbers.

In a 2015 study, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ranked climate change as the biggest threat to the world's 26,000 polar bears. Scientists estimate that by 2050, the species' population is likely to decline by 30% due to changes in habitat.

In 2015, two photos of emaciated polar bears also made headlines. One, taken by German photographer Kerstin Langenberger in August, showed an emaciated bear struggling to survive on ice in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Another, taken by photographer Paul Nicklen, showed a dead, emaciated bear on Baffin Island.

According to Jon Aars, a researcher and polar bear tracker in Norway, 2015 was a good year in Svalbard. Therefore, the image of the skinny bear in Svalbard is not representative of other bears at that time. Aars and his colleagues saw many healthy bears. However, in recent years, due to climate change, Aars has recorded many cases of sick bears in the region.

In response to the above comments, scientists say it is necessary to learn more about this issue before drawing any conclusions./.

Chu Thanh

(According to Le Monde)