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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread
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To: Sea Otter who wrote (34871)7/20/2011 10:10:09 AM
From: Land Shark  Read Replies (1) of 36917
 
July 20, 2011, 8:05 am
The Perils of Polar Bears’ Longer Swims
By FELICITY BARRINGER

Geoff York/World Wildlife Foundation
A polar bear swimming in Arctic waters in the summer of 2008. In arguments over the impacts of climate change, some of the images commonly associated with those clashes have attracted skeptical critiques, perhaps none more so than those of polar bears forced to swim longer distances because their sea ice habitat is melting. Some skeptics point out that polar bears are born swimmers and that the worries of environmentalists are therefore overdone.

Now comes a new study from researchers at the United States Geological Survey and the World Wildlife Fund indicating, after tracking a small sample of bears wearing radio collars, that the swims have indeed grown longer over the last six years. Five of the 11 mothers swimming with cubs lost the cubs along the way, and one bear even swam about 427 miles to reach sea ice.

The study’s conclusions, that bears are swimming longer distances to get to the sea ice they use as a platform to catch seals, were in line with earlier work in the area, but its six-year duration gives it more heft. Scientists put global positioning system collars around the necks of 68 adult females to focus on swims of more than 30 miles.

green.blogs.nytimes.com
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