Desperately searching for food on dry land, a starving polar bear was caught on camera by a biologist and his crew in Baffin Island, off Canada’s northern coast, not far from Greenland.
This is the devastating effect of climate change.
Polar bears, that primarily consume seals, have the habit of staking out their prey’s air hole and wait for the seals to come up for air. However, the ongoing climate conditions have led to retraction of sea ice, leaving polar bears starving.
Part of the National Geographic team, Paul Nicklen, a biologist-turned-photographer, caught this heartbreaking video on camera and commented on how when caught, the bear seemed to be just hours away from death and there was nothing him or his crew could have done to save the starving animal.
A member of his crew, Cristine Mittermeier, shared a heart wrenching post on the condition of the polar bear.
The issue was earlier brought to light through the 2016 NASA funded Study, conducted by researchers from University of Washington, that reported on how the polar bear habitats were losing sea ice concentration at a rate of 9% per decade.
For animals like the polar bear, that depend heavily on the natural state of the environment for their food hunting habits, climate change is causing grave problems.
It is truly despairing to see an animal as magnificent as the polar bear be reduced to hunt like a scavenger for survival.
You can watch the video here: