PLEASE HELP ME

Polar bears - the world's largest bears - are facing a bleak future because of global warming and experts want them declared a vulnerable species. As the pack ice melts because of global warming, polar bear numbers will plummet, experts on the species say.

In a closed meeting in Seattle late last month, 40 members of the polar bear specialist group of the World Conservation Union said the bears should be classified as a vulnerable species.
This was based on a likely 30 per cent decline in their numbers over the next 35 to 50 years. There are now only about 25,000 polar bears across the Arctic. The experts said the main cause of the decline was climatic warming and its effects on the polar bears' habitat.

"All the evidence is heading in the same direction, and the trend is dramatic," said Scott Schliebe, who led the meeting and is polar bear project leader in Alaska for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
"In a shrinking ice environment, the ability of the bears to find food, to reproduce and to survive will all be reduced."
Canadian research attributes a 17 per cent decline in polar bear numbers on the western coast of Hudson Bay in Manitoba province - from 1200 to fewer than 1000 over the past 10 years - to the effects of global warming. The panel used this research as the basis for its warning.

"We have seen with our own eyes that climatic warming is causing the ice to break up earlier, and that is affecting the survival of the bears," Ian Stirling, a research scientist for the Canadian Wildlife Service, said.
"Ice was melting there about three weeks earlier than 30 years ago", said Mr Stirling, who has been studying polar bears for 35 years.
"They are losing three weeks at the best time of the year for feeding on the ice, when seal pups are abundant and bears put on fat that they store for the four months that they have to live onshore," he said.
"The bears are losing their physical condition. It is a cumulative process that is causing a steady decline in survival, particularly for cubs and sub-adults."
Polar bears, the world's largest bears, evolved from brown bears about 250,000 years ago to become specialist carnivores. But experts say climate change is happening too fast for the bears to adapt.

Global Warming is affecting the poles thirty to forty percent more dramatically than any other part of the world.For their sake and for other arctic species please find out what you can do to slow down global warming. It is a reality.It's happening now.

Climate change, toxic pollutants and disappearing habitats will continue to obliterate species,one by one down the food chain.Guess what folks,we're part of the food chain.

www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/