Viral video of starving polar bear likely the product of climate change: expert
The effects of climate change, such as a shorter feeding season and less seal to eat, could have caused the emaciation of a bear shown in a viral video, a polar bear expert says.
The video, shot by National Geographic photojournalist Paul Nicklen, racked up over a million views and depicted a skeletal bear foaming at the mouth and digging through a metal barrel for food on Baffin Island.
Ian Stirling, an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta who has specialized in polar bears for four decades, says the period that bears are able to feed has shortened by about three weeks, and that could be the reason why it was starved.
Polar bears are able to go months without food, but Stirling says that a slightly longer period without food, combined with the fact that there is less time for bears to store fat and eat enough seal, could be what is causing bears to die of starvation.