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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Apr 6, 2021 6:51:57 GMT -5
The polar bears shared habitat with the woolly mammoths in the same area where that man works.
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Post by brobear on Apr 6, 2021 7:40:01 GMT -5
Most likely, the polar bear and the mammoth coexisted peacefully. I see no reason why they would not have.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Apr 6, 2021 17:34:01 GMT -5
Most likely, the polar bear and the mammoth coexisted peacefully. I see no reason why they would not have. I believe they leave each other alone too. The mammoth is too big to be preyed upon. However, a female polar bear with cubs or an aggressive male polar bear during mating season might chase off a mammoth that walks by. Chase of is not the same as killing. A rogue bull mammoth will be dangerous, however. Still, I believe the polar bears that existed with mammoths might look at bit more like brown bears.
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Post by brobear on Apr 7, 2021 2:10:40 GMT -5
www.arctictoday.com/some-alaska-seals-are-getting-skinnier-probably-because-of-retreating-sea-ice/?wallit_nosession=1&fbclid=IwAR0ILykLKGKLxQ189J4UIVnMoikcZn1SXCWbszeBHD19lsXTEeqMLVs955k Some Alaska seals are getting skinnier — probably because of retreating sea ice. As sea ice off Alaska continues its long-term vanishing trend, two seal species that depend on ice may be showing the effects in their bodies. Ribbon seals, distinctive for their black-and-white striped patterns on their fur, and spotted seals, known for their speckled coats, became thinner over time, according to measurement taken during six Bering Sea research cruises conducted between 2007 and 2018. The results, detailed in a study by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists, described declining body condition for adults, subadults and pups. In plain terms, the seals have gotten skinnier, said lead author Peter Boveng, who is with the Marine Mammal Laboratory at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. “We just used a very simple index of body condition, which is weight divided by length,” he said.
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Post by brobear on Apr 10, 2021 16:33:27 GMT -5
Big male compared to the author of the book Andrew E. Derocher, Polar Bears: A Complete Guide to Their Biology and Behavior ( Wildfact )
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Apr 11, 2021 22:30:23 GMT -5
/\That polar bear is nowhere near as large as Stan, the record size male polar bear.
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Post by brobear on Nov 2, 2021 14:15:24 GMT -5
www.lecerclepolaire.com/en/documentation-uk/articles/206-archives-articles/life/970-the-ice-bear-the-saga-of-a-forthcoming-extinction The “Ice Bear”: The Saga of a Forthcoming Extinction. Polar bears and ice go together in our minds as automatically as salt and pepper. The largest of the terrestrial carnivores, polar bears are uniquely adapted to live on Arctic sea ice. The significance of that relationship can be expressed quite simply: polar bears came into existence in the first place because of sea ice - if the ice disappears, so will the polar bears. Only a million or so years ago - a blink of an eye in evolutionary time - the barren ground grizzly bears roamed the coast of the Arctic mainland, adjacent to a vast new habitat: sea ice. And the ice was home to an unexploited abundance of prey – seals. At some point, grizzlies ventured out onto the sea ice and, as they learned to prey upon the ice-breeding ringed seals, they rapidly evolved into the present day polar bears. For undisturbed millennia, the sea ice was not a harsh place for the newly-evolved polar bear but, simply home, and a very comfortable home at that. More recently however, because of rapid climate warming in the Arctic, sea ice is disappearing at an alarming rate. In some areas, there are also significant trends toward earlier breakup in spring and later freeze-up in fall. As a result, the long term survival of the polar bear now appears uncertain. Over the next few decades, the prospects for their future will become clearer and will almost certainly depend on our collective ability to stabilize and then reduce our production of greenhouse gases. I have paused to marvel at the very existence of the polar bear countless times, and in many places in the Arctic, while standing on annual ice several feet thick, at the edge of an ice floe, beside an open lead (a crack in the ice with water in it), or on a vast unbroken expanse of frozen ice. In early April, there is nothing living in sight. In fact, there is not much of anything at all in sight but ice, snow, sometimes a bit of ice-cold blue water between nearby floes, or a few wisps of mist rising up from a lead. The ice occasionally cracks and creaks beneath your feet as the currents or winds make it shift slightly, possibly causing floes to grind against each other. The temperature may be -30 C (-22o Fahrenheit), sometimes with a wind of 30-50 kilometers an hour (19-31 mph) with drifting snow. *More information on site - courtesy of Pablo/King Kodiak.
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Post by brobear on Nov 15, 2021 16:07:45 GMT -5
www.livescience.com/bears-parts-smuggled-Australia-New-Zealand Polar bear parts are being smuggled around the world. People have smuggled hundreds of bear body parts — including polar bear parts — into Australia and New Zealand, a new study reveals. Enforcement agencies seized bear teeth, rugs, bile and embryos suspended in honey from passengers arriving in Australia and New Zealand from 2007 to 2018. Most of the bear parts and derivatives, such as gallbladder bile, were ingredients in traditional medicines. The goods were most often seized from people traveling into Australia and New Zealand from China, but they also came from other countries such as the U.S. and Canada. *More to read on site provided.
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Post by brobear on Jun 18, 2022 1:36:37 GMT -5
Shaky oasis for some polar bears found, but not for species By SETH BORENSTEIN June 16, 2022 apnews.com/article/climate-science-polar-bears-and-environment-f178c58681f7ea618309a6effe10b171 With the polar bear species in a fight for survival because of disappearing Arctic sea ice, a new distinct group of Greenland bears seem to have stumbled on an icy oasis that might allow a small remote population to “hang on.” But it’s far from “a life raft” for the endangered species that has long been a symbol of climate change, scientists said. A team of scientists tracked a group of a few hundred polar bears in Southeast Greenland that they show are genetically distinct and geographically separate from others, something not considered before. But what’s really distinct is that these bears manage to survive despite only having 100 days a year when there’s sea ice to hunt seals from. Elsewhere in the world, polar bears need at least 180 days, usually more, of sea ice for them to use as their hunting base. When there’s no sea ice bears often don’t eat for months. With limited sea ice, which is frozen ocean water, these Southeast Greenland polar bears use freshwater icebergs spawned from the shrinking Greenland ice sheet as makeshift hunting grounds, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science. However, scientists aren’t sure if they are thriving because they are smaller and have fewer cubs than other polar bear populations.
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Post by brobear on Jun 19, 2022 4:01:31 GMT -5
Newly documented population of polar bears in Southeast Greenland sheds light on the species' future in a warming Arctic Date: June 16, 2022 www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220616142728.htm Scientists have documented a previously unknown subpopulation of polar bears living in Southeast Greenland. The polar bears survive with limited access to sea ice by hunting from freshwater ice that pours into the ocean from Greenland's glaciers. Because this isolated population is genetically distinct and uniquely adapted to its environment, studying it could shed light on the future of the species in a warming Arctic. "We wanted to survey this region because we didn't know much about the polar bears in Southeast Greenland, but we never expected to find a new subpopulation living there," said lead author Kristin Laidre, a polar scientist at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory. "We knew there were some bears in the area from historical records and Indigenous knowledge. We just didn't know how special they were." The study, published in the June 17 issue of Science, combines seven years of new data collected along the southeastern coast of Greenland with 30 years of historical data from the island's whole east coast. The remote Southeast region had been poorly studied because of its unpredictable weather, jagged mountains and heavy snowfall. The newly collected genetic, movement and population data show how these bears use glacier ice to survive with limited access to sea ice. "Polar bears are threatened by sea ice loss due to climate change. This new population gives us some insight into how the species might persist into the future," said Laidre, who is also a UW associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. "But we need to be careful about extrapolating our findings, because the glacier ice that makes it possible for Southeast Greenland bears to survive is not available in most of the Arctic."
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jun 19, 2022 5:07:30 GMT -5
/\ The polar bear might be more adaptable than we thought. If brown bears enter Greenland, that would probably eventually turn them to Greenland brown bears or at least make them the Greenland version of ABC brown bears (which were once polar bears themselves).
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Post by brobear on Jun 19, 2022 5:32:36 GMT -5
Yeah and probably the least known brown bear subspecies is the Sitka brown bear (URSUS ARCTOS SITKENSIS)
The ABC Islands bear (Ursus arctos sitkensis) or Sitka brown bear is a subspecies of brown bear that resides in Southeast Alaska and is found on Admiralty Island, Baranof Island, and Chichagof Island of Alaska. These islands have the colloquial name of the ABC Islands and are a part of the Alexander Archipelago. This brown bear population has a unique genetic structure, which relates them not only to brown bears but to polar bears as well. Ursus arctos sitkensis habitat exists within the Tongass National Forest, which is part of the perhumid rainforest zone.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_Islands_bear
I'm not so sure which bear was first to reside on the ABC Islands, the brown bear or the polar bear. I'm thinking brown bears with rare historical visits from polar bears. But, this question remains open.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jun 19, 2022 5:37:42 GMT -5
/\ Probably brown bears as you said. Polar bears owe their existence to the Steppe brown bears anyway.
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Post by brobear on Jul 2, 2022 1:22:15 GMT -5
Some polar bears in Greenland survive on surprisingly little sea ice www.sciencenews.org/article/polar-bear-greeland-sea-ice-glacial-melange-climate-change By Nikk Ogasa JUNE 16, 2022 AT 2:00 PM “Pihoqahiak” means “ever-wandering one,” and is an Inuit name for the polar bear, a creature known to roam vast expanses of sea ice, sometimes plodding thousands of kilometers a year in search of seals. But along the fjord-cut coastline of southeast Greenland, where the sea freezes over for just a few months of the year, some isolated polar bears are surviving as homebodies. Unlike most polar bears, these bears don’t follow the sea ice during its annual recession or move onto land to hunt. Instead, the crafty ursids stalk seals on nearby glacial mélange — a floating mishmash of icebergs, sea ice fragments and snow that persists year-round near the front of glaciers in the fjords, researchers report in the June 17 Science. “They’re residents in fjords that are sea ice–free for more than eight months of the year,” says Kristin Laidre, a biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Normally, a polar bear wouldn’t be able to survive without sea ice for that long.” For polar bears (Ursus maritimus), sea ice isn’t just frozen seawater; it’s the platform they usually use to hunt their preferred prey — seals. But as human-caused climate change raises Earth’s global temperature, that ice is disappearing. The number of polar bears that live on sea ice in the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean and Canada’s Hudson Bay is already declining. Researchers estimate that most other subpopulations of the bears will collapse by 2100 unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the species as “vulnerable.” The fjords of southeast Greenland and similar, limited areas could become a last, temporary refuge for a small number of bears, though only curbing climate change can save the ice-dependent species, Laidre and her colleagues say. Glacial mélange isn’t widespread in the Arctic, and what exists could disappear if temperatures rise too much. Laidre and her colleagues estimate that several hundred bears may dwell in the fjords of southeast Greenland, though further work is needed to obtain a more precise count. The southeast Greenland group came to the researchers’ attention while they were studying polar bears along east Greenland’s coast to provide advice to the Indigenous peoples who hunt the bears for subsistence. An analysis of 83 receiver-tagged polar bears from 1993 to 2021 revealed that, for the most part, bears living south of about 64° N latitude don’t interact with bears to the north, and vice versa. Southeast Greenland bears may be mostly isolated by Greenland’s ice sheet to the west and a rapid current to the east, which could sweep seafaring bears south and stifle northward movement, the researchers say. In northeast Greenland, the median distance traveled by tagged bears was 40 kilometers every four days. But in the southeast region, the median distance traveled was just 10 kilometers every four days, with bears sometimes traveling between neighboring fjords and sometimes remaining in the same fjord all year. “For a polar bear, that’s nothing,” says Steven Amstrup, a zoologist and chief scientist of the conservation organization Polar Bears International, based in Bozeman, Mont., who was not involved in the study. “Apparently they’re finding enough resources there that they don’t have to make these huge, big movements.” Southeast Greenland bears hunted on sea ice when it was present during a few months in winter and spring, the researchers found. For the rest of the year, the ursids used the glacial mélange that packed the fjords as hunting grounds. “They use it just like sea ice,” Laidre says. “They’re able to walk [and hunt] on the mélange … and they can swim around between the pieces of ice and ambush seals.” ( more to read on site )
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Post by brobear on Jul 2, 2022 1:23:38 GMT -5
A polar bear stands atop glacial mélange — a floating mishmash of icebergs, sea ice fragments and snow that exists year-round — in southeast Greenland in September 2016. THOMAS W. JOHANSEN/NASA OCEANS MELTING GREENLAND
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jul 2, 2022 2:16:50 GMT -5
www.nathab.com/blog/black-grizzly-and-polar-bears-now-all-found-in-churchill/The video where a polar bear scared off a black bear is probably in Churchill. Also in chart above, the male polar bears form West Hudson Bay is only 400kg (880 pounds) which is close to Churchill. I understand why Big Bons once said that male polar bears in Churchill can be as small as 600 pounds. Estimate of male polar bears' weight from Churchill: Adult male polar bears weigh from 775 to more than 1,500 pounds. Females are considerably smaller, normally weighing 330 to 550 pounds. cruise-tour.com/polar-bears-in-churchill/Seems they can be as small as 775 pounds. A 1500 pounds is already large and is probably found in Foxe Basin.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jul 2, 2022 3:46:56 GMT -5
Polar bears can take on multiple opponents.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jul 2, 2022 3:48:51 GMT -5
Now I know why it says some polar bears in the video are pushing 1200 pounds and some of the polar bears are not much larger than the grizzlies. They are obviously not from Foxe Basin.
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Post by brobear on Jul 2, 2022 4:56:50 GMT -5
Quote: "Now I know why it says some polar bears in the video are pushing 1200 pounds and some of the polar bears are not much larger than the grizzlies. They are obviously not from Foxe Basin." I believe that 1200 pounds is rather a typical weight for most polar bear populations. And, regardless of appearances, they are easily more than double the weight of those barren ground grizzlies.
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Post by brobear on Jan 9, 2023 3:08:10 GMT -5
Tourists Think They’re Approaching Flock Of Sheep — They Were Wrong taphaps.com/tourists-sheep-wrangel-island-23a/?utm_source=MWN&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2bzbg18ogqqchLdOjQUQ2LAiZy1TuJKTTXpoRCD7Tu4xJyAzuNuuIinQM A group of adventurous tourists thought they were approaching a flock of sheep on a hillside. When they got closer, however, they realized just how wrong they were. What they found instead is something we thought impossible. Wrangel Island Nature Reserve in the Arctic provided adventurous tourists with an expedition they will never forget after they happened upon something never seen before. As the group approached the island aboard the vessel Akademik Shokalskiy, they witnessed what appeared to be a flock of grazing sheep. Soon, however, they would realize how wrong that assumption was. *More to read and more pictures to see on site provided.
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