[HN Gopher] Polar bears that can survive without sea ice ___________________________________________________________________ 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] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-17 23:00 UTC)