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Action
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Bear © Bert E. Kavich
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I Action Bear Will
Report
To You On The Latest News
Stories, Articles And Information Pertaining To Endangered Animals,
Animal Rights And Actions Which May Be Taken To Protect And Help Our
Friends Of The Wilderness.
This Months Stories Are
Webcam Streams Live As Polar Bears Migrate
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 animal.
The brief encounter Thursday was streamed live to computers around the
world through a new program that aims to document in real time the
annual migration of hundreds of polar bears outside Churchill, Manitoba.
The bears travel through the small town each October and November and
then wait for the Hudson Bay freeze-up, when they can get out on the
ice and hunt for seals. In the past, their trek was witnessed mainly by
scientists and intrepid tourists.
Now, thanks to an initial $50,000 grant from the Annenberg Foundation
to set up four cameras on a makeshift lodge and a roaming Tundra Buggy,
plus ongoing payments for bandwidth and technical infrastructure, the
bears' antics and actions at this way station can be viewed from
anybody's living room through the foundation's website, www.explore.org.
"It brings the
Arctic to the people," said Krista Wright, executive
vice president of Polar Bears International, an advocacy group based in
Bozeman, Mont. "The polar bear is the North's iconic species. This is
that exotic animal that people travel from all over the world to see."
There are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide. The Western Hudson
Bay polar bears, one of 19 subpopulations, are estimated to number
between 600 and 800. Their gathering point near the former military
town of Churchill makes them among the most accessible and studied
group of bears in existence.
Their numbers are expected to grow over the next few weeks as the
weather turns colder, culminating with the bay expected to freeze
around the third week of November.
The Polar Bears International camp on the tundra is about 30 miles (50
kilometers) outside of town. Each September through November, they and
Frontiers North Adventures host scientists and hold webcasts for
schoolchildren to give them a firsthand view of how climate change is
damaging the bears' habitat.
It's unseasonably warm in Manitoba, as evidenced on the webcam by the
tundra bare of snow. That raises concerns that ice will be late in
forming again this year — last year, freeze-up didn't happen until
mid-December, nearly a month later than usual. That's a problem for the
bears, Wright said.
"It's breaking up earlier and freezing later, so the time they're
spending on land is longer. The time they're on land, they're basically
fasting," she said.
Charles Annenberg Weingarten, the foundation's vice president and a
trustee, said the polar bear webcam is an experiment he hopes to expand
into a program called Pearls of the Planet that would place streaming
cameras in various wild places.
Weingarten said a new feature will be added to the polar bear webcam
soon that will allow viewers to document their observations of the
polar bears on the website. The idea, he said is to encourage
scientific learning, something like a Sesame Street for adults.
WILDLIFE
ONLINE:
See
streaming video of the
polar-bear migration and more at
http://explore.org
Polar
Bears International:
www.polarbearsinternational.com
Information
Source: Story by Matt Volz For
The Associated Press. Found in the Arizona
Republic newspaper. Sunday, November
06,
2011 Issue. In the (TRAVEL) section.
Our Other Top Stories
PROTECT THE POLAR BEAR'S HOME
Polar Bears Could Die Out By 2050
WASHINGTON -
Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off
by 2050 — and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of
thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government
scientists forecast Friday.
Only in the
northern
Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of
Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expected to survive
through the end of the century, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which
is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.
USGS
projects that polar bears during the next half-century will
disappear along the north coasts of Alaska and Russia and lose 42
percent of the Arctic range they need to live in during summer in the
Polar Basin when they hunt and breed. A polar bear's life usually lasts
about 30 years.
"Projected
changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will
result in loss of approximately two-thirds of the world's current polar
bear population by the mid 21st century," the report says.
Polar
bears depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, which is
their primary food. They rarely catch seals on land or in open water.
Because the general decline of Arctic sea ice appears to be
underestimated, scientists said their forecast of how much polar bear
populations will shrink also may be on the low side.
"There is
a definite link between changes in the sea ice and the
welfare of polar bears," said USGS scientist Steven Amstrup, the lead
author of the new studies. "As the sea ice goes, so goes the polar
bear."
Amstrup
said 84 percent of the scientific variables affecting the polar bear's
fate was tied to changes in sea ice.
As of
this week, the extent of Arctic sea ice had fallen to 4.75
million square miles — or 250,000 square miles below the previous
record low of 5.05 million square miles in September 2005, according to
the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
No
hope for quick change
Scientists do
not
hold out much hope that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other
industrial gases blamed for heating the atmosphere like a greenhouse
can be turned around in time to help the polar bears anytime soon.
Polar
bears have walked the planet for at least 40,000 years.
"In spite
of any mitigation of greenhouse gases,
we are going to see the same amount of energy in the system for at
least 20, 30, 40 years," Mark Myers, the USGS director, said.
Greenland
and Norway have the most polar
bears, while a quarter of them live mainly in Alaska and travel to
Canada and Russia. The agency says their range will shrink to no longer
include Alaska and other southern regions.The
findings of U.S. and Canadian scientists are based on six months of new
studies, during which the health of three polar bear groups and their
dependency on Arctic sea ice were examined using "new and traditional
models," Myers said.
Information
Source: Associated Press (Author Unknown) Sept. 8, 2007
The
Humane Society Of The U.S.
Animal Protection Agency U.K.
PETA / TV
Did You Know?
That the
National Park Service created Smokey Bear to protect America's forest
in 1944. He became so popular, and received so much fan mail, that he
was given his own ZIP code (20252)!
Source:
Woman's World magazine 08/14/07
Smokey Bear's Web Site
Endangered
Animal News
Endangered
Species Fact Sheet
Legal Beagle &
Associates
Max Has The Facts
Max Has The Facts
Pet Store
My Dear
Friends,
I am humbly asking
that you "please" open up your hearts in helping the
poor unfortunate
homeless and their pets. A donation to a homeless shelter can provide a
much needed
meal,
clothing
and maybe shelter for these poor people. Won't you
please
help? Below I have provided links to six very reputable and
established shelters who do wonderful work helping the homeless.
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Beagle), Max P. Churchill, Mother Churchill, Mycroft, Bogart, Malcom
Pembroke,
Hilde,Wilhelmina & Sir Reginald Fox. Copy Right
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Kavich
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