Are Polar Bears "Dying off"?

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Gore says a scientific study shows that polar bears are being killed swimming long distances to find ice that has melted away because of “global warming.” They are not. The study, by Monnett & Gleason (2005), mentioned just four dead bears. They had died in an exceptional storm, with high winds and waves in the Beaufort Sea. The amount of sea ice in the Beaufort Sea has grown over the past 30 years. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that polar bears, which are warm-blooded, have grown in numbers where temperature has increased, and have become fewer where temperature has fallen. Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago, and survived the last interglacial period, when global temperature was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present and there was probably no Arctic ice-cap at all. The real threat to polar bears is not “global warming” but hunting. In 1940, there were just 5,000 polar bears worldwide. Now that hunting is controlled, there are 25,000.

Ms. Kreider says sea-ice “was the lowest ever measured for minimum extent in 2007.” She does not say that the measurements, which are done by satellite, go back only 29 years. She does not say that the North-West Passage, a good proxy for Arctic sea-ice extent, was open to shipping in 1945, or that Amundsen passed through in a sailing vessel in 1903.
 
According to the known 16 stock structures and 3 unknowns listed in the 2008 Arctic marine mammal report card. All the combined geographical regions would be represented as: 7 areas not known, 5 areas in decline, 5 areas stable, and 2 areas increasing in population.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/marine-mammals.html
 
Why do deniers keep asking this question? The answer is simple -- global warming is not the ONLY threat that polar bears face. If we only think in terms of absolutes, black and whites, then we will never have an understanding of the real world.

Hunting and poaching is also a threat to polar bears. By the 1970's hunting and poaching had almost wiped out the polar bears. The populations fell to as low as 10,000 in the entire world. Because of global cooperation (not an easy feat in the midst of the cold war) restrictions on hunting were placed, and polar bear populations have started to make a come back.

So, while some polar bear populations are increasing because of restrictions on hunting,[1] almost everyone agrees that the overwhelming threat to polar bear population today, is the loss of sea ice.[2][3] The Arctic is expected to be ice free during summer months by mid century. By some accounts this will happen as early as 2013.

Polar bears are considered marine animals because of their integral link to the sea and to sea ice. They live much of their lives on the sea ice; it serves as a moving platform from which they hunt seals – the mainstay of their diet.[4][5]

Because of loss of arctic sea ice, the US Government, Department of the Interior, predicts that Alaska's entire population of polar bears, along with 2/3 of the world's polar bears will be gone by the middle of the century.[6]

Currently, of the 19 polar bear populations, the two which where most affected by over hunting are still recovering. The two most studied populations are known to be declining. And there really isn’t enough information on the 15 other population to determine if the numbers are faring with climate change.
 
in some areas yes they are fewer than years past but large animals move around a lot and hunt for food so if food is short they will move making it appear they died off or stoped reproducing
 
,girls answer mine please

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgFPt26YX8IO1pk4x1ZpA3Hsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090104073616AAxOEF7


who cares if they die off, they are the only animals that activly hunt humans
 
the polar bears are fine. they have increased in population over the last 20 years. and every species has to die of sometime.
 
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