POLAR BEARS THE ENDANGERED

SPECIES By: Matthias Keller

WHY ARE POLAR BEARS GOING EXTINCT?

• 8 of the 19 subpopulations are in decline, 3 are stable, 1 is increasing and 7 have insufficient data.

• The people who of which hunt the polar bears are the Inuit, Russian Pomors, Yupik, Chukchi, Nenets, and hunters from industries (until it became illegal for them)

• Large scale hunting of the polar bear has almost caused them to go nearly extinct

• Global Warming has caused ice sheets in the arctic to melt which has resulted in the Polar bears being forced to swim from land to ice caps to hunt for their main source of food, Seal.

HOW HUMANS CAN PROTECT IT?

• 1956 the USSR banned all hunting of Polar bears (the first country to do so)

• 1968 Canada imposed hunting quotas (which does not mean that they completely banned it)

• 1965-1973 Norway kept making more harsh laws on hunting of the polar bear

• 1971 The United states of America only limited the hunting of Polar bears, in a chance of controlling the population.

• 1972 The Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed

• 1973 The “International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar bears” was signed by all five countries that contained Polar bears (This included USSR, Canada, Norway, Denmark, and the United States of America

• The population of the Polar bear rebounded after international laws took place

• The Inuit people of Canada reported having polar bears wander though human inhabited land which they believe this means that the population is increasing and becoming stable again, but I believe that it means that the polar bears are running out of food and are looking else where to make ends meet

WHY HUMANS SHOULD PROTECT IT?

• location: Northern parts of Canada ( includes northern Quebec), North coast line of Alaska, Northern Russia, Greenland (Danish controlled), Svalbard (Norwegian island)

• The Polar bear is a key figure for Native American people of the arctic (Inuit)

• Can cause an unbalance in their ecosystem which could result in a side effect in ours, small or large and effect can result in terrifying consequences

• They are the only Carnivorous animal in the arctic that keeps the food chain imbalanced