Polar Bear Body Cam Shows Predator's POV

New footage from a polar bear physique cam reveals how these ursine inhabitants of the Arctic play, swim and hunt.  

Simply launched by the U.S. Geographic Survey, the footage is from a point-of-view digicam across the neck of a feminine polar bear from the southern Beaufort Sea, simply north of Alaska. Based on the USGS, scientists fitted the feminine with the digicam to trace her each day actions, behaviors and feeding charges.

The footage captures a bear's-eye-view of the world as the feminine plods throughout the ice, chows down on a seal, has a play battle with one other polar bear and swims within the ocean. The objective of the mission, in line with the USGS, is to higher perceive how polar bears are responding to declines in sea ice within the Arctic.

A feminine polar bear sporting a physique cam play fights with one other polar bear within the southern Beaufort Sea.

Credit score: USGS

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) had been listed as threatened underneath the Endangered Species Act in 2008. The primary purpose for the itemizing, in line with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, was the persevering with lack of sea ice, which threatens the bears' means to hunt for seals throughout the winter. A 2015 research within the journal Ecological Functions discovered that polar bear populations within the southern Beaufort Sea declined between 25 p.c and 50 p.c from 2001 to 2010.

The Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that there are about 26,000 polar bears break up into 19 completely different populations throughout the Arctic. The bears prey totally on ringed seals and bearded seals, in line with conservation group Polar Bears Worldwide, which is what makes them so weak to Arctic soften. As the autumn freeze comes later within the Arctic and the spring soften begins sooner, bears are caught on strong floor, unable to hunt seals, in line with a 2013 overview article within the journal Matters in Companion Animal Medication.   

"Polar bears have few options if their habitat (the ocean ice) and their entry to their ringed seal prey quickly disappear," the creator wrote.

And sea ice is quickly disappearing. Scientists have been observing report lows in ice extent for years and now predict that the Arctic could also be totally ice-free within the summerby the center of the century. This 12 months, sea ice within the Arctic truly retreated briefly in November, an occasion scientists stated was just about unprecedented. Winter sea ice has been seen to retreat solely as soon as earlier than, in November 2013, however that drop was 5,400 sq. miles (13,986 sq. kilometers) in comparison with 2016's 19,300 sq. miles (49,987 sq km).

Authentic article on Dwell Science.

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