"troppo" wrote in message
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enigma wrote in
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Polar bears turn cannibalistic as climate change depletes arctic food
supply
Hunting grounds melt, animals feast on their own
By Rheana Murray / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, January 11 2012, 5:41 PM

An adult male polar bear with the carcass of a cub, in the Arctic
Ocean, near the Svalbard Archipelago.
Jenny E. Ross
An adult male polar bear with the carcass of a cub, in the Arctic
Ocean, near the Svalbard Archipelago.

Dwindling Arctic Sea ice is cutting off polar bears' food supply,
forcing the starving animals to devour their own kind.

While cannibalism among polar bears isn't unheard of, experts say the
behavior is becoming increasingly common.

"There are increasing numbers of observations of it occurring,"
photojournalist Jenny Ross told BBC News. "Particularly on land where
polar bears are trapped ashore, completely food-deprived for extended
periods of time due to the loss of sea ice as a result of climate
change."

Hmmm - Photojournalist - BBC - maybe wait and see what Mitchell Taylor
says?

"Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of
polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both
an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has
made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing,
are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear
populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two
have for local reasons modestly declined."

(London Daily Telegraph 28 June, 2009)

of course he also said Taylor believes that "Polar bears, as a species, do
not appear to be threatened or in decline based on the data that I've seen
at the present time, although some populations do seem to be experiencing
deleterious effects from climate change."