Posted on 06/13/2006 6:00:39 AM PDT by frithguild
ANCHORAGE - Polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea may be turning to cannibalism because longer seasons without ice keep them from getting to their natural food, a new study by American and Canadian scientists has found. The study reviewed three examples of polar bears preying on each other from January to April 2004 north of Alaska and western Canada, including the first-ever reported killing of a female in a den shortly after it gave birth.
Polar bears feed primarily on ringed seals and use sea ice for feeding, mating and giving birth.
Polar bears kill each other for population regulation, dominance and reproductive advantage, the study said. Killing for food seems to be less common, said the study's principal author, Steven Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center.
"During 24 years of research on polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea region of northern Alaska and 34 years in northwestern Canada, we have not seen other incidents of polar bears stalking, killing and eating other polar bears," the scientists said in the study, which is being published in the journal Polar Biology.
Environmentalists contend that shrinking polar ice due to global warming may lead to the disappearance of polar bears before the end of the century.
A theory bearly basd on reality.
puhleeze..Bush is too busy creating hurricanes to harm GOP states..didn't you hear clinton the other day???
[hmm... would that make them "Bipolar Bears"?]
What power!
There are cannibal tribes in Africa to this day. Only an Ice Age can stop it.
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