As you may know we’ve been trying to expand our knowledge base to reflect information on organic lifestyle as well as environmental concerns.  Here is one of those concerns:  Polar Bears.

Scientists believe that Ursus maritimus, the “sea bear,” evolved about 200,000 years ago from brown bear ancestors and eventually adapted for survival in the Far North.

Polar bears are the world’s largest land predators. Adult male polar bears weigh from 775 to more than 1,500 pounds. Females are considerably smaller, normally weighing 330 to 550 pounds. Their range is huge and includes Russia to Alaska, from Canada to Greenland and onto Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. Biologists estimate there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears with sixty percent living in Canada.Polar bears are a potentially endangered species living in the circumpolar north. Populations are showing signs of stress due to shrinking sea ice, which is due to climate change. A diminishing ice pack directly affects polar bears because they hunt their main seals — their food source– off the ice packs.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service states, “In the declining polar bear population of Canada’s Western Hudson Bay, extensive scientific studies have indicated that the increased observation of bears on land is a result of changing distribution patterns and a result of changes in the accessibility of sea ice habitat.”