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What will happen to the Polar Bear?
Topic Started: Dec 19 2016, 06:56 AM (516 Views)
Mammuthus
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Title explains it all, what will happen to the Polar Bear? What will happen to them, will they mange to survive global warming?

If so how?

Will they evolve dramatically and survive or will they mate with Brown Bears to create a new Sub-Polar Bear that might save the species? Or will we change are ways and help them by becoming more Eco-Friendly?


The reason I've went and created this thread is because I just watched a documentry called "The Evoloution Of The Polar Bear" and it made me rather touched and sad, so I want to here you're opinions on the Polar Bears current situation.
Edited by Mammuthus, Dec 19 2016, 07:03 AM.
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LeonardosHeir
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Coming from complete hope, I think they'll be able to make it. I think they'll be able to make it while might having to evolve.
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Thalanx
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As long as the process of global warming doesn't suddenly accelerate, polar bears will have time to adapt to a different life in which they will live exclusively on land and will primarily become scavengers, or hunters of land mammals instead of seals.
If they are unable to occupy a niche distinct enough from brown bears to keep on existing, though, then I suppose they will either out-compete brown bears, be out-competed by brown bears, or fade into nonexistence via hybridisation with brown bears.

Hybridisation with brown bears won't save polar bears as a species; it will just create a polar-brown bear hybrid swarm. If the hybrids are fertile, they will probably go on to breed with brown bears, as purebred polar bears will be too rare to find by this point. This will create fertile polar-brown bear hybrids that are over 50% brown bear. I'm sure it's easy to tell where this will lead; a population of brown bears with some traces of polar bear ancestry in their blood.
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SquamataOrthoptera
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If im not mistaken, Polar Bears are already going further down south into Canada due to Global Warming, if it continues like this, they will have plenty of time to go further south before the Glaziers are at serious risk.
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DinosaurMichael
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Polar Bears will likely adapt and evolve eventually probably becoming a new species in thousands of years. There's a reason they're moving down southwards.
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LeopardNimr
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the grolar bear.
is the answer
it's a natural healthy hybrid.
but humans are I have a limited vocabulary. no doubt
but it's only VU on the red list.
we protect our CR leopards pretty well down in israel
but they do come to the more northern part in the recent years...
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Mammuthus
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How well do you think Polar Bears would cope living with Brown Bears nowadays
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Thalanx
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Mammuthus
Dec 21 2016, 06:22 AM
How well do you think Polar Bears would cope living with Brown Bears nowadays
this purely depends on how much they compete with each other...
if they target the same prey, then the stronger of the two species will catch so much prey that it will be harder for the weaker of the two species to thrive...
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Grazier
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They're already dieing, whether they go extinct or evolve, the difference is only a handful of survivors vs none.

Note this isn't a politically motivated statement, I actually think there's nothing we can do about global warming and our attempts to fix it are nothing but empty gestures to make us feel better about ourselves. I also think climates change and species go extinct as a result, it has always happened, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, but the sheer number of times it's happened and number of species which have gone extinct is so overwhelming one has to be a bit numb to it if they really understand.

Which isn't to intentionally diminish the tragedy, the polar bear in particular is such a cool animal. I'm grateful for having known it at least, unlike the vast majority of species to have existed.
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