Argumentative Essay On Polar Bears

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“Those searching for unmistakable evidence of the global climate crisis should pay a visit to the Arctic. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. The average annual temperature in Barrow, at the northern-most tip of Alaska, has increased 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years” (Noblin, n.d.). Polar bears have been threatened in the past by unregulated commercial and sports hunting in the 1960’s and 1970’s. They were being wiped out quickly with modern methods of hunting, including aircraft, and were facing a huge loss in their population. Fortunately the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was established which was signed by Canada, Norway, Denmark (for Greenland), the United States of America, and Russia …show more content…

They mainly feast on Ice Seals which have a large amount of blubber. They need a high fat content and many calories to maintain their health, and can eat 100lbs of blubber in just one sitting (PolarBearsInternational, n.d.). If they do not get a proper nutrition they can drown, starve, or freeze to death. With the ice in the Arctic retreating, it’s a lot harder for Polar bears to hunt. Usually they find breathing holes carved out by a seal using their strong sense of smell. Then they wait patiently until the seal surfaces, which could happen in a few hours to days (PolarBearsInternational, n.d.). For Polar bears, this is one of the most effective ways of hunting, other than stalking seals basking on the ice. With the ice melting, there are less and less breathing holes for the Polar bears to easily catch their prey. Catching a seal is not an easy task, and it’s even harder for a malnourished Polar Bear (PolarBearsInternational, …show more content…

“Loss of ice limits their distribution, rain events can collapse lairs, and low snow years can mean seal pups are born in the open, where they become easy prey for arctic foxes, several bird species, and polar bears” (PolarBearsInternational, n.d.). This has resulted in reproductive failure in some areas for Ice Seals, meaning that Polar bears are not only losing their habitat, but their food source as well, causing them to either starve, or freeze to death. With the decreased population of Ice Seals, and the inefficient hunting methods, they are resorting to terrestrial sources of food (PolarBearsInternational, n.d.). If Polar bears don’t starve, or freeze to death, then some Polar bears end up drowning trying to swim across the gap from the ice to the shore. With the gap increasing, the conditions of the water have become hazardous for the Polar bears, making it harder for them to journey across. “A female polar bear reportedly swam for nine days - nonstop-across the Beaufort Sea before reaching an ice floe, costing her 22 percent of her weight and her cub” (PolarBearsInternational, n.d.). Nine days –nonstop is too much swimming for a Polar Bear, and in no way good for her health. In the process of swimming for those nine days she lost almost 1/4th of her body weight, which won’t be easy for her to gain back, and her cub. According to

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