Scientists Document Increased Cannibalism Among Polar Bears Due To Climate Change
Wikimedia CommonsPolar bears are engaging in frequent cannibalism as the global climate crisis decimates the Arctic.
It’s difficult to survive in the wild, especially if you’re a 900-pound polar bear. Polar bears have been documented to sometimes engage in cannibalism to survive harsher times. But recent findings in this year’s science news reveal that polar bears are now engaging in cannibalism at an alarming rate.
“Cases of cannibalism among polar bears are a long-established fact, but we’re worried that such cases used to be found rarely while now they are recorded quite often,” said Ilya Mordvintsev, a senior researcher at Moscow’s Severtsov Institute of Problems of Ecology and Evolution. “We state that cannibalism in polar bears is increasing.”
There are a number of reasons for the phenomenon, with the main factors being food scarcity and the polar bear’s diminishing habitat due to shrinking polar ice caps.
“In some seasons there is not enough food and large males attack females with cubs,” Mordvintsev explained.
Growing industrialization in parts of the Arctic has also shrunk the polar bear’s environment. These giant white bears hunt between the Gulf of Ob to the Barents Sea. Now this territory has become a popular shipping route for vessels carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Mordvintsev posits that the gas extraction activities along with the launch of a new LNG plant in the Arctic are connected to the rise in polar bear cannibalism as the animals are compelled to eat their own to survive as they lose food and hunting areas.
Reports of starving polar bears have already made science news, including a 2019 science article about a clearly emaciated polar bear that had been found 435 miles from its natural habitat.
If the situation continues, experts warn that the polar bears will be forced to look for food even further toward the shorelines or higher-altitude archipelagos, moving away from the polar ice that has always been their sanctuary.
