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With incredible simplicity this visually stunning ad will show people that polar bears are dying right now — but we can save them. It will direct viewers to a dedicated “take action” website that will make it very easy for them connect with other polar bear advocates and to call and write the White House and Congress. The Center for Biodiversity is seeking donations to put this ad on television. Contact them if you want to help. The new ad is even better than the 2008 version, which reached 90 million people and forced President Bush to protect polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. But we’re running out of time to make it happen. We need just $10,000 more this week to make the ad a go. Please donate $35, $50 or $100 today to save the polar bear.

http://youtu.be/IDt3a21sa-g

Population Size Declines   In southern portions of their range, like Hudson Bay, Canada, there is no sea ice during the summer, and the polar bears must live on land until the Bay freezes in the fall, whereupon they can again hunt on the ice. While on land during the summer, these bears eat little or nothing. In just 20 years the ice-free period in Hudson Bay has increased by an average of 20 days, cutting short polar bears’ seal hunting season by nearly three weeks. The ice is freezing later in the fall, but it is the earlier spring ice melt that is especially difficult for the bears. They have a narrower timeframe in which to hunt during the critical season when seal pups are born.

As a result, average bear weight has dropped by 15 percent, causing reproduction rates to decline. The Hudson Bay population is down more than 20 percent.  Retreating Sea Ice Platforms The retreat of ice has implications beyond the obvious habitat loss. Remaining ice is farther from shore, making it less accessible. The larger gap of open water between the ice and land also contributes to rougher wave conditions, making the bears’ swim from shore to sea ice more hazardous. In 2004, biologists discovered four drowned polar bears in the Beaufort Sea, and suspect the actual number of drowned bears may have been considerably greater. Never before observed, biologists attributed the drowning to a combination of retreating ice and rougher seas.

• FEATURED LINKS How are polar bears handling one of the lowest sea ice years on record? Science Solid: America’s Polar Bears on Thin Ice

Scarcity of Food Exacerbating the problems of the loss of hunting areas, it is expected that the shrinking polar ice cap will also cause a decline in polar bears’ prey — seals. The reduction in ice platforms near productive areas for the fish that the seals eat affects their nutritional status and reproduction rates.   Polar bears are going hungry for longer periods of time, resulting in cannibalistic behavior. Although it has long been known polar bears will kill for dominance or kill cubs so they can breed with the female, outright predation for food was previously unobserved by biologists. Polar Bear Status In 2008, the polar bear was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act primarily because of the decline of its primary habitat: sea ice. The Secretary of Interior listed the polar bear as threatened but restricted the Endangered Species Act’s protections and thus the polar bear’s future is still very much in jeopardy. The polar bear is the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” of the serious threat global warming poses to wildlife species around the world, unless we take immediate and significant action to reduce global warming pollution.