Polar bears are the biggest land-based carnivores on the planet, with males weighing up to 800kg and measuring up to three metres long. For perspective, the average person weighs around 70kg-80kg, making polar bears ten times the weight of a person!
Polar bears live in areas around the arctic ocean, including Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway, and Russia. They are great at swimming and need to do so in order to hunt for their prey on both land and sea. However, less than 2% of their hunting trips are successful- and a recent study has found that the polar bears metabolism is a lot faster than previously believed.
A fast metabolism means these bears have to eat more to keep their energy up, but now these creatures face the problem of their food supply depleting as human activity has brought around numerous problems that are decreasing a polar bear’s access to food.
The earth’s climate is changing due to human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels like oil, which increases the Co2 levels in the atmosphere and warm the planet up. This warming of the planet is melting the ice that polar bears hunt on, meaning they are having to stay on land and risk being killed or injured by humans in villages in order to scavenge for other foods. Since 1979, arctic sea ice has declined at a rate of around 13% per decade- which will make for around 50% less ice in the period of 1979-2019.
Oil is also being transported across the earth’s oceans, meaning there are potentially oil spills that can poison a polar bear’s food sources or the bear itself. This ruins the food supply for the polar bear and leads them to prolonged hunger.
These facts about the impact of human activity upon the life of a polar bear are shocking, and should result in a change of our behaviour globally to protect this threatened species of animals and conserve the diminishing environment that is being destroyed by us.