Melting Of The Arctic Ice Due To Climate Change Is Making Polar Bears Use Four Times As Much Energy To Hunt
The Arctic ice is rapidly melting due to climate change and two species of predators are being forced to change their diets and behaviours faster than they can cope with it.
The Arctic ice is melting due to climate change and two species of predators are being forced to change their diets and behaviours faster than they can cope with it.
Polar bears and narwhals are consuming up to four times as much energy to survive because of major ice loss in the Arctic, say scientists. Once what was the perfect habitat for the cold-climate mammals, the Arctic is now shrinking and becoming less suitable to them.
Global warming is leading polar bears onto land and narwhals to swim for their lives to avoid the killer whales that can now access ice-locked stretches of ocean, discovers the study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
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Worldwildlife
Both species have to change their behaviours in ways that can increase the amount of energy they burn by as much as 400 percent. Only a few species could sustain at this rate.
Polar Bear Habitat
The mammals are physiologically designed to use as little energy as possible. A polar bear's is primarily a ¡°sit and wait¡± hunter and adapts to catching seals by breathing holes, and narwhals have evolved to dive very deep for prey without making fast movements, reports The Guardian.
¡°The Arctic world is so much more unpredictable for these animals now,¡± said Dr Terrie Williams, a co-author of the report from the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
¡°With a finite amount of oxygen in their muscles and blood, we find that the narwhals budget their speed, depth, and duration of dives to match the capacity of their internal scuba tanks. One miscalculation could result in drowning.¡±
GreePX
¡°Polar bears on land without access to marine mammal prey are at an increased risk of starvation,¡± the study authors wrote.
¡°The high costs of diving for narwhals, coupled with the loss of reliable breathing holes upon which they depend, due to unpredictable sea ice shifts, have led to the mammals becoming trapped beneath the ice,¡± the study authors added.
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Popular Science
According to scientists, decline of both apex predators will ¡°lead to rapid changes in the Arctic marine ecosystem.¡±
