Bedtime or go time? Observing what animals do during a total solar eclipse
When darkness falls on central Ohio during the total solar eclipse on April 8, will animals think it's time to go to bed? Will they be anxious? Will they care?
When darkness falls on central Ohio during the total solar eclipse on April 8, will animals think it's time to go to bed? Will they be anxious? Will they care?
Plants & Animals
Mar 22, 2024
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Encompassing over 16,000 km2 of towering mountains, long fiords, lush valleys, and massive ice caps, Agguttinni Territorial Park is a protected area on northern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. This park, and all of Nunavut, ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 12, 2024
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Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) like clean, cold water and can be found around northern Greenland, Svalbard, Alaska and in Arctic parts of Russia and Canada.
Plants & Animals
Mar 8, 2024
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Rising temperatures and melting ice play a central role in the unfolding Anthropocene—i.e., the most recent geologic period in Earth's history. What distinguishes the Anthropocene from prehistoric human impacts on the environment, ...
Environment
Mar 7, 2024
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For polar bears, the climate change diet is a losing proposition, a new study suggests.
Ecology
Feb 17, 2024
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More time stranded on land means greater risk of starvation for polar bears, a new study indicates.
Plants & Animals
Feb 13, 2024
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Climate change is a threat to polar bear's survival. Now they have a new deadly challenge facing them: bird flu. It was recently confirmed that a polar bear from northern Alaska has died from the disease.
Plants & Animals
Jan 16, 2024
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Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) take advantage of the winter to build up their fat reserves. Intensive hunting of seals, a resource rich in fat, allows bears to store up enough energy to get through the summer.
Plants & Animals
Jan 9, 2024
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The temperature has dropped, the nights have drawn in. The winter holidays have started, families are gathered—so where can you go to fuel the imagination and get some fresh air? A zoo might not be your first thought—but ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 27, 2023
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Nottingham Trent University research revealed how carnivores became significantly more active and engaged more with their enclosures when given additional enrichment such as different types of feeding, new structures, the ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 12, 2023
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Ursus eogroenlandicus Ursus groenlandicus Ursus jenaensis Ursus labradorensis Ursus marinus Ursus polaris Ursus spitzbergensis Ursus ungavensis Thalarctos maritimus
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a bear native to the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas. It is the world's largest carnivore species found on land. It's also the largest bear, together with the omnivore Kodiak bear which is approximately the same size. An adult male weighs around 400–680 kg (880–1,500 lb), while an adult female is about half that size. Although it is closely related to the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrow ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting the seals which make up most of its diet. Although most polar bears are born on land, it spends most of its time at sea, hence its name meaning "maritime bear", and can hunt consistently only from sea ice, spending much of the year on the frozen sea.
The polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species, with 5 of the 19 polar bear subpopulations in decline. For decades, unrestricted hunting raised international concern for the future of the species; populations have rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect. For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of Arctic indigenous peoples, and the hunting of polar bears remains important in their cultures.
The IUCN now lists global warming as the most significant threat to the polar bear, primarily because the melting of its sea ice habitat reduces its ability to find sufficient food. The IUCN states, "If climatic trends continue polar bears may become extirpated from most of their range within 100 years." On May 14, 2008, the United States Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA