POLAR BEARS
No one likes Extinction! :(
Description
Polar bears have a along neck, small heads and ears compared to others bears. A polar bear's fur is water repellent. It's water repellent fur also sit's on a layer of a dense undercoat. Most polar bears have a white or yellowish fur but it can sometimes change to creamy yellow to a light brown. The average male polar bear can weigh up to about 2,000 pounds, thats about twice the size of a full grown female polar bear. Male polar bears can measure up to 10 feet long and 3.5 to 5 feet high. Polar bears have short and solid claws that are best used for walking on ice, snow, and the Artic shore. Polar bears have jagged sharp teeth that they use to rip apart the flesh of seals. They also have long and very sharp canines. A polar bears small body parts such as their ears and tail can help them to reduce the risk of heat loss. Unlike a polar bears small ears and tail they have very big feet. Their huge feet are one of their major body parts in which help them to survive. Polar bears use their feet to spread on the snow to support their weight, they also use their feet like paddles when they swim. If you look closely at the pad of a polar bears paw their are tiny grippers called papillae. A polar bears papillae increases friction on the snow or ice making it easier to walk
Classification
The scientific classification for a polar bear is Animalia for Kingdom, Chordata for Phylum, Mammalia for Class, Carnivora for Order, Ursida for Family, Ursus for Genus, and Ursus Maritimus (sea bear) for Species. A polar bears closest relatitive is the brown bear a Ursus Arctos.
Habitat
A polar bears habitat encompasses all of the circumpolar Arctic region. Polar bears can usually be found swimming in the frigid ocean water, or adrift on ice. It's common habitat is on offshore pack ice. Over 40 percent of the polar bear population lives in Northern Canada, on pack ice or along the shore of many islands. Polar bears prefer the pack ice over then any other domain, the reason to that is it allows them to stay near to their main food source. They remain on this pack ice throughout the year. Polar bears tend to like the sea ice over any other. When the ice begins to melt they travel many miles during the summer to stay on the sea ice so they can be near their food source. For the rest of the polar bears that does not travel from ice berg to ice berg will be forced to live on land until next fall when the ice reforms again. That domain is located in the most southern part of the polar region in Mantioba, Canada, or on the Hudson Bay.
Nutrition
Polar bears have developed an appetite for seals especially for the seal fat, the highest calorie food source possible. The two type of seals that polar bears feed on is the ringed and the bearded seals. Ringed seals are smaller and more easier for young and female polar bears to catch. Male polar bears tend to hunt bearded seals more which are much bigger. When hunting season is good for polar bears they only eat the blubber so they can build up fat reserves that they need to sustain themselves between meals. Polar bears leave the carcasses of their left over food for scavengers such as Arctic foxes, ravens, and young polar bears. The other types of food that polar bears may or may not eat are called opportunistic feedings. These types of food, with the exception of beached whales, don't provide enough calories to satisfiy the polar bear and sustain it's massive body size and to build up it's fat reserves.
Threats
Polar bears are not becoming endangered because of humans gone hunting for them or because of other animals. The reason to why they are endangered is because of a direct effect of how us humans are treating the earth and its environments. A polar bears habitat is in the Arctic, and like many other environments on the earth, scientists are trying to figure out what is happening to that specific region of the earth. Scientists have been doing deep core tests. That's when they drill a hole into the ice of the Aunt Arctic and pull out a core of ice. In that core of ice scientists can get very specific information about Antarctic's weather, atmosphere, and the temperature at any specific time period. The deep core tests can define facts from 420,000 years ago. These tests have exposed facts about the CO2 ( carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere. There is a natural up and down range that the levels have but they have never gone over 300 parts per million until now. his indicates that the CO2 that use to leave the earth's atmosphere is now staying inside the atmosphere. The CO2 that is remaining on earth, also known as greenhouse gasses, is slowly but surely raising the earths temperature causing the "Greenhouse Effect". The Greenhouse Effect wars the earth and in result is melting precious snow and ice that polar bears need to survive.
Solutions
The government has passed laws to stop hunting polar bears and they have also set aside more land for polar bears. Scientists are currently doing research to find out as much as they possibly can about this situation and have also asked for donations, small or big, towards their studies.
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