The polar bear population is dying out. Polar bears are an endangered species. Polar bears are an endangered species.

Nature conducted such an experiment for us. There are also seals in the Caspian Sea - the usual polar ringed seal, another group of them that did not have time to retreat after the ice. Where she lives, the average annual temperature is above 10.5 degrees Celsius (Astrakhan), or even 12.5 degrees (Tuleniy Island). This is 20–22 degrees higher than on Wrangel Island, where the common ringed seal lives. And, finally, much higher than the average annual temperature that the average Muscovite can dream of.

Nevertheless, the Caspian seal has no plans to die. On the contrary, he lives quietly all the way to Iran. We will not give average temperatures there, so as not to upset Russian readers, for whom even the average annual temperature of plus five is considered happiness. For the seals to hatch their cubs, the winter ice of the northern Caspian Sea is sufficient - in the not very harsh climate of Astrakhan. And yes, in the south of the Caspian Sea (Turkmenistan) there is not enough ice, so they quite easily give birth on the shore. It is not difficult to guess that the Arctic will not become warmer than the Southern Caspian in any foreseeable future.

Suppose we come across a very stubborn ecologist who doesn’t care about any of the above arguments. Such people have a rich imagination. In particular, they came up with the idea that modern global warming is much more extreme than the "gentle and natural" warmings of the past.

It is clear in advance what they will say: the warming after the Ice Ages was so gradual that the animals took a long time to adapt to them. That is why the ringed seal did not become extinct on Ladoga and was so easily transformed in the Caspian Sea and Lake Baikal. But with the current warming, everything is different - it is anthropogenic, and therefore immensely sharp. Everyone will die, no one will remain.

There is only one answer to this: we, people, need to worry less about the idea of ​​​​our own exclusivity and some kind of magical power. On the contrary, we should be more interested in the nature around us. Then we will be less tormented by painful fantasies about weakness and the gradualness of the changes taking place in it.

In reality, the current global warming is quite slow - people are still too weak against the background of natural phenomena to change something globally quickly enough. 14 thousand years ago, the average annual temperature on the planet increased so sharply that the sea increased by 3–6 centimeters per year (16–25 meters in just 400–500 years). Today it is 2–3 millimeters per year. The difference is 15–20 times. If polar bears and seals have overcome catastrophically rapid natural warming, then they are even more able to cope with the current ones.

Berries, grass and algae - a little about the omnivorous nature of the polar bear

Some ecologists oversimplify things by saying that polar bears depend solely on the opportunity to catch seals from the ice. This predator is actually ready to eat absolutely everything. In Canada it eats dogs, and in other places it attacks people. Its systematic attacks on reindeer, musk oxen and birds are widely known.

Moreover, it is not even a pure predator. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, polar bears who see berries quickly pick them up. They would eat them more often, if not for the fact that berries are rare in the places where these animals live. In North America, they eat grass, grains and even algae. By the way, there were cave bears of the last ice age (close in mass to today’s white ones).

Omnivorousness is greatly facilitated by the developed curiosity and intelligence of this animal. The polar bear, like its brown brother, is the record holder among terrestrial animals in terms of the ratio of brain volume to overall body size. He thinks quickly: even having never seen a composite sphere, he quickly understands that it is better to take it apart “seam by seam,” as a person would do (from 1:13):

As we see, bears disassemble and taste literally everything that catches their eye.

Is there an iron border between a polar and a brown bear?

In the modern world there are populations of brown bears that are genetically closer to whites than to other browns. These are the ones who live on the islands near Alaska. There are viable hybrids of white and brown, but non-viable ones have not been registered. All this taken together raises the question: to what extent is it generally correct to classify brown and polar bears, with all their external differences, as different species?

This is usually done on the basis of a logical statement: they say, the morphological differences between the polar and brown bear are such that neither one nor the other can successfully and for a long time exist in the habitat of their relative. Brown will not last long, hunting seals with his unmasking color. White is not very suitable for attacking land animals on dark surfaces.

But separating living things based on their color or suitability for a particular environment is a slippery slope. Let's take a typical Eskimo and a typical Congo pygmy. What happens if the second one is forced to survive alone in the habitats of the first one? It is quite obvious that he will die much faster than a brown bear in the white one’s homeland.

We can say that a polar bear is larger than a brown one. But the average weight of a pygmy is much less than that of the average non-pygmy (one and a half times). The typical weight of a male polar bear is 400–450 kilograms, the largest subspecies of brown (Kamchatka) is 350–450 kilograms, females are 200–300 kilograms and 150–200 kilograms, respectively.

The polar bear is white-haired, the brown bear is not. But the Eskimo and the Pygmy differ no less radically in color. What about metabolism? Polar bears do not hibernate, but brown bears do. True, in fact, female polar bears actually lie in one place during pregnancy, and their pulse becomes half as fast, and in general - all this is very reminiscent of hibernation. And brown bears do not fall into the most typical hibernation: it is too easy to bring them out of it. The terrible rumor about the connecting rod still often makes large areas of sparsely populated areas of Russia wary.

What happens to a polar bear when it gets warmer?

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Why are the greens so insistent on the extinction of polar bears?

"norm", exists for a very short time - a few thousand years. And it is constantly subject to powerful fluctuations that enormously change this "norm". Not so long ago, deciduous forests grew on Novaya Zemlya, there were no polar bears, and there was no permanent ice in the Northern Ocean Animals, due to sharp natural temperature fluctuations, have learned to quickly adapt to these changes.

As we noted above, polar bears arose from brown bears, and then “turned brown” again where it became too warm. This may have happened more than once. The seal has learned to both chisel the ice with its claws in the cold and swim a little deeper in the hot Iranian summer. And one species of monkeys from Africa adapted to the point that it mastered both Greenland and the Sahara.

The real living world is not the frozen icon that the Greens imagine it to be. This is an eternal and very dynamic kaleidoscope. One of the integral parts of this kaleidoscope is the fight against a systematically and rapidly changing climate. Everything that people can do in this regard will not be strong enough for many centuries to destroy Russia’s largest predator.

Days in the northern hemisphere are getting longer and warmer. Of course, people are rejoicing at the coming warmth. However, the same cannot be said about polar bears. Animals feel great at temperatures of -45 degrees and below. But they experience discomfort from overheating. In addition, an increase in average temperatures creates the preconditions for a reduction in the population of the planet's largest predator.

What is happening in the Arctic today? Polar bears feed exclusively on the meat of mammals, mainly pinnipeds: seals, seals, in addition, the bear eats carrion and what the sea throws up. Sometimes, when he is especially hungry, he feeds on rodents, moss and berries.

The reduction in ice cover in the Arctic seas and changes in the age structure of sea ice are forcing polar bears to spend more time on the coast and on islands. Staying on the shore for a long time, polar bears are deprived of access to their main food source - seals living on sea ice, and are also at high risk of collision with humans, as a result of which they can be shot.

Today, according to scientists, there are 20-25 thousand individuals left on earth. Is it a lot or a little? Should we preserve this species? And if they should, then why? Let's figure it out.

So, are there many polar bears left? NO! Their number is extremely small. And it continues to decline, despite the protection of the animal and prohibitions on its production. Just one fact. Between 2004 and 2007, out of 80 human-tagged polar bear cubs, only two survived. Previously, at least 50% of newborns managed to survive.

The answer to the next question has already become obvious. We must, we simply must, protect this species from extinction. And this should be done not because polar bears are cute, or so that our descendants will see them in person and not in photographs. If the polar bear disappears, the Arctic ecosystem will also be under threat. As we already know, the polar bear’s diet consists of various marine animals, mainly pinnipeds. Based on this fact, it can be assumed that the population of these species will increase sharply after the disappearance of their main enemy. But the number of fish living in the waters of the Arctic Ocean may decrease, as there will be many more marine predators, which means they will need more food. And this will be a huge problem for both animals and people.

On the other hand, polar bears provide food for small predators that are unable to feed themselves by hunting. If a bear manages to kill a walrus, then first of all it devours the skin and fat, the rest of the carcass only in case of severe hunger. The remains of the prey are usually eaten by arctic foxes. This means that without the help of intelligence, arctic foxes may be on the verge of extinction or even die.

Thus, people must do everything to keep the polar bear alive.

What steps is Russia taking in this direction?

In Russia, polar bear hunting has been completely prohibited since 1957; this species is listed in the Red Book. Other Arctic countries began introducing hunting restrictions much later.

Since 2010, the Russian Geographical Society has supported the Polar Bear project. Its goal is the conservation and study of polar bears in the Russian Arctic, the development of non-invasive methods for collecting biological material (shed guard hairs, excrement) for genetic studies of the population structure of the species in the region.

By the way, the study of these animals by Russian scientists is the most humane thing in the world. Thus, in the USA, to study polar bears, a fang is still removed from a euthanized animal. What is it like for a predator to live without tools for hunting?

The Russian Geographical Society is constantly expanding the range of polar bear research: first it was the Barents Sea population, in 2013 an aerial census of the Chukchi-Alaskan population was carried out for the first time, and in 2014 work began on the coast of Taimyr.

The work is being carried out in collaboration with the Council on Marine Mammals, the Russian Arctic National Park, the Taimyr Nature Reserves, as well as the A.N. Institute of Ecology and Evolution. Severtsov RAS.

On March 22-24 this year, Russian scientists met with American colleagues in San Diego. During the meeting, a document was signed on a joint study of polar bears in Chukotka and Alaska in the period 2016-2018.

Thus, for many years Russia has been concerned about preserving the population of the northern predator. We understand that preserving polar bears means preserving the Arctic ecosystem, and, consequently, the Earth’s ecosystem.

Well, who will now say that Russia is pursuing only its own utilitarian goals in the Arctic?