IUCN Study Projects 30% Decline For Polar Bear #s Within 35 Years - Reuters

[hatrack]

Polar bear populations are likely to fall by more than 30 percent by around mid-century as global warming thaws Arctic sea ice, experts said on Thursday in the most detailed review of the predators to date. The report, by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), estimated there are between 22,000 and 31,000 polar bears in the Arctic and said they will be increasingly vulnerable as their habitat shrinks.

"Climate change will continue to seriously threaten polar bear survival in the future," Inger Andersen, IUCN Director General, said of the study, based on updated counts and new projections of sea ice since a previous review in 2008.

It said there was a high probability that "the global polar bear population will decline by more than 30 percent over the next 35 to 40 years", broadly reaffirming findings from 2008.

Andersen urged almost 200 nations, meeting at a U.N. summit on climate change in Paris from Nov. 30-Dec. 11, to restrict greenhouse gas emissions to slow the melt. The IUCN groups scientists, governments and other experts.

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/19/us-climatechange-bears-idUSKCN0T800320151119#F2mlB7gzHlJMu6uY.97

[AuntPatsy]

1. Thier habitat is melting away, so many going hungry incredibly sad,