News tagged with polar bear
Putin receives 'prehistoric' water from Antarctic lake
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was given a water sample Friday taken from a pristine lake hidden under Antarctic ice for over a million years, after Russian scientists drilled down to its surface.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 10, 2012 |
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Super Bowl advertisers go after 'second screens'
(AP) -- Call it the "second-screen" Super Bowl. About two-thirds of smartphone and tablet owners use their gadgets to do things like text or post on Twitter while watching TV, according to research firm Nielsen. ...
Feb 01, 2012 |
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Is cannibalism in polar bears on the rise?
(PhysOrg.com) -- A series of photographs of cannibalism in polar bears have been released, and the researchers who witnessed the act think the rate of cannibalism may be increasing. They observed three instances ...
Dec 09, 2011 |
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Study of wolves will help scientists predict climate effects on endangered animals
Scientists studying populations of gray wolves in the USA's Yellowstone National Park have developed a way to predict how changes in the environment will impact on the animals' number, body size and genetics, amongst other ...
Dec 01, 2011 |
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Cameras stream Canadian polar bear migration
(AP) -- In the harsh, remote wilds of the Canadian tundra, a wolverine scampers up to a polar bear snoozing near the shore of the Hudson Bay. The bear rises and makes a half-hearted charge, driving away the fierce, badger-like ...
Oct 27, 2011 |
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Polar bear habitats expected to shrink dramatically
Habitats of polar bears are expected to shrink dramatically over the coming decades, the International Union for Conservation of Nature warned Thursday, urging immediate action to save the Arctic animals.
Oct 20, 2011 |
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Polar bears ill from accumulated environmental toxins
New doctoral thesis documents that industrial chemicals are transported from the industrialized world to the Arctic via air and sea currents. Here, the cocktail of environmental toxins is absorbed by the sea's food chains ...
Oct 13, 2011 |
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Heidi, Germany's cross-eyed opossum star, dead
Heidi, a cross-eyed opossum who became an Internet sensation in Germany, winning three times more Facebook admirers than Chancellor Angela Merkel, died on Wednesday, her zoo said.
Sep 28, 2011 |
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Preserving four percent of the ocean could protect most marine mammal species, study finds
Preserving just 4 percent of the ocean could protect crucial habitat for the vast majority of marine mammal species, from sea otters to blue whales, according to researchers at Stanford University and the ...
Aug 29, 2011 |
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In warmer Greenland, shoot the dogs, drill for oil
(AP) -- The old hunter was troubled by the foreigners encroaching on his Inuit people's frozen lands.
Aug 21, 2011 |
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Model shows polar ice caps can recover from warmer climate-induced melting
A growing body of recent research indicates that, in Earth's warming climate, there is no "tipping point," or threshold warm temperature, beyond which polar sea ice cannot recover if temperatures come back down. New University ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 17, 2011 |
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Arctic scientist's complaint being reviewed
(AP) -- An inquiry is under way into the treatment of suspended Arctic scientist Charles Monnett, an Interior Department official said.
Aug 13, 2011 |
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Scientist suspension is about project's management
(AP) -- The government's suspension of an Arctic scientist was related to how a polar bear research project was awarded and managed and not his earlier scientific work detailing drowned polar bears, a watchdog group said ...
Aug 02, 2011 |
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Official: Suspension unrelated to polar bear paper
(AP) -- The recent suspension of Alaska wildlife biologist Charles Monnett is unrelated both to an article that he wrote about presumably drowned Arctic polar bears and to his scientific work, a federal official said Friday.
Jul 30, 2011 |
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Arctic scientist under investigation
(AP) -- A federal wildlife biologist whose observation in 2004 of presumably drowned polar bears in the Arctic helped to galvanize the global warming movement has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated ...
Jul 28, 2011 |
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Polar bear
Ursus eogroenlandicus Ursus groenlandicus Ursus jenaensis Ursus labradorensis Ursus marinus Ursus polaris Ursus spitzbergensis Ursus ungavensis Thalarctos maritimus
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a bear native to the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas. It is the world's largest carnivore species found on land. It's also the largest bear, together with the omnivore Kodiak bear which is approximately the same size. An adult male weighs around 400–680 kg (880–1,500 lb), while an adult female is about half that size. Although it is closely related to the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrow ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting the seals which make up most of its diet. Although most polar bears are born on land, it spends most of its time at sea, hence its name meaning "maritime bear", and can hunt consistently only from sea ice, spending much of the year on the frozen sea.
The polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species, with 5 of the 19 polar bear subpopulations in decline. For decades, unrestricted hunting raised international concern for the future of the species; populations have rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect. For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of Arctic indigenous peoples, and the hunting of polar bears remains important in their cultures.
The IUCN now lists global warming as the most significant threat to the polar bear, primarily because the melting of its sea ice habitat reduces its ability to find sufficient food. The IUCN states, "If climatic trends continue polar bears may become extirpated from most of their range within 100 years." On May 14, 2008, the United States Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
For more information about Polar bear, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
