Norway – As hundreds of people travel every year to Norwegian archipelago Svalbard primary to see polar bears, a photography of a starving polar bear taken by Kerstin Langenberger has restarted the environmental debates across the world.

In the Norwegian archipelago, the photographer ran into a hungry and thin female polar bear at the line of starvation that seem unable to hunt for food because of an injured front leg. According to Langenberger, the majority of the horribly thin polar bears are primarily females. The starvation of the bear might have been due to the injury.

Starving-polar-bear
Photographer Kerstin Langenberger spotted this bear whilst out on a tour of Svalbard. No doubt that photo grabbed your attention, because it looks not much more than an old, thin domestic dog. Credit: Kerstin Langenberger

“I realized that the fat bears are almost exclusively males which stay on the pack-ice all year long […] the females, on the other hand, which give birth to their young, travel long distances to do so and are often slim. They also end up caught on places there’s not a lot meals” said Kristin Laidre, a researcher at the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center.

Regardless of the bear’s injury, food scarcity for polar bears is a direct consequence of the ongoing absence of sea ice, which difficulty seal hunting.  Even though scientists are unable to prove if hunger is the cause of death for polar bears in 100 percent of the cases, it remains as the most probable cause. According to Langenberger, she saw polar bears in good shape. But she also came across bears who were near to starvation or already dead.

The worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) now lists polar bears as “vulnerable” since their numbers have allegedly reduced by more than 30 percent in the last 45 years.

Obama’s Climate Plan

For quite some time now, the President has been traveling the nation creating conscience on the effects on climate change and making room to support its Climate Action Plan intended to pass before he leaves office. Top Republican lawmakers are planning a wide-ranging offensive to undermine President Barack Obama’s hopes of reaching an international climate change agreement. But with every day more signs of the damage human actions do to ecosystems and wildlife it may be time for the topic to be finally taken seriously.

Meanwhile, world powers are preparing to meet in Paris in December with the aim of agreeing to curb global temperature rises.

Obama said now was the time “to protect the one planet we’ve got while we still can”.

Source: Kerstin Langenberger