Early summer starves polar bears
Today Nature News reports on new evidence that retreat of sea ice in the Hudson Bay is starving polar bears to death by shortening their hunting season.
The cubs and the oldest bears, specifically, are more likely to die in years with early ice breakup. Polar bears hunt seal pups in the early spring, and if the ice breaks early the youngest and oldest bears can't catch enough pups to last them through the summer.
The US Geological Survey already warned recently that at least two-thirds of polar bears could die from ice melt in the next 50 years, as Oliver Morton discussed in this post. But the direct evidence that ice breakup is killing young and old bears is the first available. Starving polar bear cubs will probably get a high profile in appeals to put the polar bear on the US Endangered Species List next year.
