Polar bears and climate changing
When we think about global warming and climate
change, we usually think ________________how it is going
to affect humans. However, we need to think about
animals, too. Many species will be threatened
______________________ extinction by the end of this century
if climate change is not halted. One of these is the
world’s largest land predator, the polar bear. This magnificent native ___________________ the Arctic previously had
no natural enemy apart _______________________man, but is now
under threat from nature itself. Because of melting sea
ice, it is likely that more polar bears will soon starve,
warns a new study that discovered the large carnivores
need to eat 60 percent more than anyone had realized.
Polar bears use floating ice as a platform to hunt
seals from. They eat a large volume of food during
the winter, storing enough fat under their skin to last
them through the summer months. When the ice
melts in the spring, many travel south to places such
as Churchill, Canada, returning north when the seas
freeze again, usually around October. Now, however,
the winter ice is melting earlier and forming later. The
bears’ store of fat runs out, and some starve to death.
Other bears are drowning, because many of the ice
platforms have melted, and some bears have to swim
over a hundred kilometres from one ice platform to
another. Due to exhaustion or stormy weather, some
never make it to their destinations.