Barely surviving a changing world

We think of polar bears as slow-moving, rather lazy, animals which sleep a great deal. In fact, these giants are some of the greatest wanderers on four legs.

Bears routinely travel hundreds of kilometres across the icecap; political boundaries mean nothing to them. At a conference in Quito, last month, the great white bear’s name was added to Appendix II of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Animals, better known as the ‘Bonn Convention’, after the city in which in which it was signed in 1979. Migratory species threatened with extinction appear in the Convention’s Appendix I. Ones not in imminent danger, but requiring cooperation between states for their welfare, are given Appendix II status.

The polar bear, the largest predator on four legs, needs all the help it can get. This specialist hunter has difficulty adapting to change. Global warming is much more severe at the poles than in temperate latitudes such as ours; the greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere are driving temperatures upwards. The ice is melting; over two million square-kilometres of the Arctic ice-cap have been lost. The sea is freezing later in the autumn. It melts earlier in the spring.

Polar bears catch seals on the fringes of the ice shelf. Remove the ice and they starve. With the shortening ice season, there is less time to put on the extra fat needed to see them through the winter. Females, many of them pregnant, retire to dens to sleep out the dark months. Their cubs are born in the den. Emerging into a warming world in the spring, a mother and cubs must swim ever greater distances to reach suitable hunting grounds. Being run down by ships, ploughing newly-opened Arctic sea routes, is an additional hazard. A bear doesn’t breed until she is four or five years old. Her cubs won’t leave her side for another two and a half years and, when they do, survival prospects are slim. With its slow reproductive rate, the polar bear is in trouble. Pollution, hunting, oil exploration, and interbreeding with brown bears, exacerbate the problem. Over 400 polar bears are killed each year for their fur and body parts.

There are 10 largely separate populations, distributed all around the top of the world, some more vulnerable than others; according to the IUCN Species Survival Commission, four bear sub-populations are declining, one is increasing while the status of the other five isn’t known.

‘Together with the international community’, Ecuador’s environment minister Lorena Tapia declared, ‘we will continue to ensure safe passage for the travellers of our natural world’. The polar bear was just one of 31 mammal and fish species added to Appendix II. The list now includes hammerhead sharks, manta rays, Cuvier’s beaked whale and the European eel, once common in the rivers and ditches of Ireland. Numbers here have fallen by 85% since the 1980s. This is a migrant species; mature eels cross the Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea where they spawn and die.

For birds, the most celebrated of travellers of all, migration is becoming increasingly dangerous. Tens of millions are killed annually as they journey from Africa to Europe. Egypt, Libya and EU member state Malta, are the worst offending countries. According to a Convention press release, there is now a 700km line of nylon nets set along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. An intergovernmental task force is proposed to address the illegal killing of birds.

The 900 delegates in Quito came from over 100 countries. Will their deliberations lead to action on the ground or was this a rerun of the many climate change conferences, strong on rhetoric and worthy aspirations but with few concrete targets or binding agreements? Russia and the United States sent delegations. Their governments are at loggerheads on so many issues. Can they leave their differences aside and cooperate to protect bears as the Appendix II designation requires?