[HN Gopher] Polar bears that can survive without sea ice
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Polar bears that can survive without sea ice
Author : gmays
Score : 64 points
Date : 2022-06-17 16:31 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| robonerd wrote:
| It seems bizarre to framing this as something bears discovered
| about themselves, rather than something scientists discovered
| about bears. It's not like anybody actually asked bears what the
| bears know.
| jwilk wrote:
| I initially read it as:
|
| > _Polar bear population discovered that [they] can survive
| without sea ice_
|
| But now I think it's supposed to be:
|
| > _Polar bear population [was] discovered that can survive
| without sea ice_
|
| The latter still seems awkward to me. Is it even grammatically
| correct?
| jasonhansel wrote:
| Yes, the latter is correct given the unique grammatical
| conventions of newspaper headlines. These sorts of headlines
| are called "crash blossoms":
| https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31FOB-
| onlanguage...
| TheDarkestSoul wrote:
| Think you're reading the headline wrong there my friend.
| 'discovered' is passive in this sentence. [A] Polar bear
| population [has been] discovered [by researchers] that can
| survive without sea ice.
|
| the perils of headline-syntax
| beloch wrote:
| Polar bear populations are not crashing. They're declining in
| some areas, stable in others, and actually increasing in some
| areas too[1].
|
| Polar bears are smart, adaptable, omnivores who are lucky enough
| to live in areas with relatively low human populations. They'll
| probably weather climate change better than a lot of species.
|
| [1]https://www.arcticwwf.org/wildlife/polar-bear/polar-bear-
| pop...
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| Why is this surprising to intelligent scientists? Common sense
| says that unless the bears eat the ice and it's their only source
| of a critical resource (nutrients?) then of course the bears will
| find a work around.
|
| Did they really think the bears would just give up and die if the
| ice all melted?
| moomin wrote:
| You might want to read beyond the headline.
| martyvis wrote:
| +1. Totally agree. Nowhere in the article does anyone seem
| "surprised". If you are going to project a response on the
| scientists it would probably be relief or concern.
| kosyblysk666 wrote:
| ...and what r u projecting here? ...a concerned mother?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If I understand correctly, ice _does_ supply a critical
| resource to polar bears - cooling.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I'm sure you already know that animals, including humans, die
| due to changes in their environment. So what do you mean here?
| kosyblysk666 wrote:
| yes,, death it is part of the evolution
|
| whats ur point?
| kosyblysk666 wrote:
| lucasmullens wrote:
| It's always astonishing to me that this world is still so
| unexplored that we can discover an entire population of polar
| bears in 2022. They're literally one of the biggest animals, how
| did we miss them?
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| We lose humans 400 feet away from hiking trails all the time.
| The fact that we lose polar bears in the Arctic is not that
| surprising.
| chucksta wrote:
| I imagine the phrase "like finding polar bears in a snow storm"
| caught on :P.
|
| Jokes aside, there is so much of the world that's unoccupied
| for various reasons.
| https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/03/these-maps-show-how-e...
|
| I imagine we're missing a lot, especially if you factor in deep
| ocean and jungle
| Vladimof wrote:
| They are too busy tracking what you do online...
| tpmx wrote:
| [Mildly exaggerated] It's astonishing to you that we don't have
| Star Trek/Orville(s03e03 is actually pretty great, watch
| it!)-type planet-level sensors capable of creating complete
| inventories of biological lifeforms of a particular type on our
| planet? :)
| pupppet wrote:
| Don't need Star-trek tech for that, just people who can move
| about and there are plenty of those.
| adrianN wrote:
| People tend to dislike moving about in places where ice
| bears roam, so there are not very many who do.
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| Also, how would you know they're part of an isolated
| population unless you spend time (and money) collecting
| samples, doing genetic analysis, tracking movement, and
| observing behavior? And don't forget, having a bunch of
| researchers running around is going to affect the bears'
| behavior and introduce some uncertainty into the
| observations.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Where is the value for shareholders in that
| twiddling wrote:
| to support big game hunters
| kadoban wrote:
| Mostly because we're not looking. I believe that if there were
| money in knowing where every polar bear is, we could solve that
| engineering problem. But there really isn't?
|
| So my answer is essentially: "capitalism".
| giarc wrote:
| The population is 27 bears on an island 2.1 million square
| kilometers large.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| By using ice that is calving from glaciers.
|
| They're still hunting from ice that's _even rarer_ than sea ice,
| and disappearing just as quickly. A population hunting
| exclusively on land would have been a lot more noteworthy.
| washedup wrote:
| Agreed, no wonder they waited until later in the article to
| reveal that the trick was simply... more ice
| sacrosancty wrote:
| Polar bears need sea ice to hunt or their prey needs sea ice to
| evade them? Surely those seals will have to resort to resting on
| land instead, if there's no ice?
|
| While people wring their hands, the polar bear population
| continues to climb https://climateataglance.com/climate-at-a-
| glance-polar-bears...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > While people wring their hands
|
| Ridiculing people demonstrates, IME, that your own argument has
| nothing stronger to support it.
| [deleted]
| tspike wrote:
| Garbage article. The only sources mentioned were authored by
| Susan J Crawford, who has conducted no primary research and
| whose means of sustaining herself appears to be misinterpreting
| other researchers' work and blogging about it. Here are
| responses from the primary researchers who wrote the papers she
| references: https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/financial-
| post-publis...
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| I know what you're all thinking. I'm thinking it too. This is a
| huge relief. The polar bears won't be wiped out after all. We can
| now get back to our planned polar ice cap melt. Why go to Florida
| when you can bring Florida to you!? /s
| wonderwonder wrote:
| CRUDite wrote:
| I remember reading about a bear classed as a link between brown
| bears and polar bears. Post mortem, under a grinning hunters
| foot. I remember wondering if he had killed the first and only
| hybrid that would have bridged the gap for a doomed species.
| Melodramatic perhaps. Actually I see there is a wiki! It seems
| there is one way gene flow.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly-polar_bear_hybrid
| hinkley wrote:
| My understanding is that those are not particularly uncommon,
| and that they're being hunted to prevent hybridization from
| occurring.
|
| But I don't know what we think the world is going to look like
| in 10,000 years if we keep making species extinct and stopping
| them from re-integrating with their close relatives. Completely
| new species aren't going to pop up in that time. It's just
| going to be new specializations of existing ones. And if we
| keep going this way, everything is going to turn into
| houseflies and rodents.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I'm under the impression Polar Bears are kinda-sorta just a
| special case of Brown Bears.
| user249 wrote:
| I think we should create a polar bear preserve in Antarctica in
| an isolated area away from penguins
| godmode2019 wrote:
| Antarctica does not have polar bears, introducing a apex
| predators to a balanced environment is not a good idea.
| bismuthcrystal wrote:
| That's exactly what a penguin would say.
| user249 wrote:
| We here in the US have apex predators in the Rocky Mountains
| (grizzlies, wolves) so I don't see how this is a blocking
| issue
| giarc wrote:
| Because those ecosystems have existed with those predators
| for thousands/millions of years and have balanced
| themselves.
| giardini wrote:
| user249 says>"I think we should create a polar bear preserve in
| Antarctica in an isolated area away from penguins"<
|
| FTFY:
|
| I think we should create a polar bear preserve in Antarctica in
| an isolated area away from penguins _and humans._
| user249 wrote:
| Well yes of course. I'm envisioning a park with natural and
| human-made barriers to keep them in their area. We already
| manage large predators in the lower 48 states of the US by
| tracking and monitoring wolves and grizzlies. If it's a
| choice between polar bears going extinct at the North Pole
| and surviving comfortably at the South Pole, I'd choose the
| latter.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| > _But the isolated sub-population has found a way to hunt
| without sea ice. The group, consisting of 27 adult females, has
| adapted to hunting on the ice that has calved off glaciers --
| called glacial melange. The research team used genetic analysis
| to learn that this population has been isolated from other polar
| bear populations along Greenland's east coast for at least 200
| years._
|
| Well, that might give them a few extra generations but it sounds
| like a recipe for mutational meltdown in the long run
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutational_meltdown
| [deleted]
| altacc wrote:
| The HN title should reflect Nature's: "Polar bear population
| discovered that can survive without sea ice"
|
| These are not polar bears that have adapted to the current, rapid
| loss of sea ice due largely to anthropogenic climate change. This
| is colony of polar bears that have been living in the same
| unusually small territory for 200 years due to some other reason.
| Currently there are 27 of them. They still hunt from ice, which
| has calved off a glacier, but they don't stray far from their
| terriroty.
|
| All the other polar bears in the Artic, who hunt from sea ice and
| travel extensively, are severely under treat due to loss of
| habitat.
| [deleted]
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