Did the bears suddenly, magically evolve this ability? That’s highly unlikely but doesn’t prevent the usual ‘endangered by Arctic ice loss’ nonsense
Polar bears are capable of swimming vast distances, a potential survival skill needed in an Arctic environment where summer sea ice is vanishing, a study led by the U.S. Geological Survey showed on Tuesday.
The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology, tracked 52 female polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska. Between 2004 and 2009, a period of extreme summer-ice retreat, about a third of those bears made swims exceeding 30 miles in distance, according to the study results.
The 50 recorded ultra-marathon swims averaged 96 miles, and one bear was able to swim nearly 220 miles, according to the study results. The duration of the long-distance swims lasted from most of a day to nearly 10 days, according to the study.
The bears’ movements were tracked using global positioning system collars. All the animals in the study were females because male polar bear necks are too thick for GPS-equipped collars, said Karen Oakley, a supervising biologist at the USGS Alaska Science Center.
Many of the polar bears in the study had young cubs with them, and it appears that at least some of the cubs – which were not collared – might have been able to keep up with their mothers in the water, USGS officials said.
The scientists were able to track 10 of the studied bears within a year of collaring and found that six still had their cubs, the lead scientist said in a statement released by the USGS.
“These observations suggest that some cubs are also capable of swimming long distances. For the other four females with cubs, we don’t know if they lost their cubs before, during, or at some point after their long swims,” Anthony Pagano, a USGS scientist and lead author of the study, said in the statement.
While the demonstrated long-distance swimming ability is likely a good thing for polar bears, scientists were concerned about the animals expending too much energy in their efforts to travel across open water, the USGS statement said.
Oakley said the study sample was too small to draw conclusions about the fate of the entire polar bear population, which in 2008 was designated as threatened and granted Endangered Species Act protections because of rapid warming in their Arctic habitat.
The study simply describes behavior that was observed, Oakley said. “It’s just very interesting that in fact they can swim long distances, and cubs can swim long distances,” she said. “Do all the cubs that attempt to swim these long distances survive? We don’t know.”
Scientists do not know whether such long-distance swimming is a new behavior, USGS officials said.
The technology to track long-distance bear swims accurately was not available in the past, Oakley told Reuters. “The GPS technology, which is relatively new, is what allowed us to really do the actual in-depth analysis of this,” she said.
But polar bears probably lacked the opportunity or need to make such long swims in that part of the Arctic in the past. In past decades, polar bears were always able to rest on available floating summer sea ice, she said.
I wonder how much of our tax money
went to Captain Obvious to study this.
“scientists were concerned about the animals expending too much energy . . . ”
- I’m sure the bears are touched by the concern. . .
“Scientists do not know whether such long-distance swimming is a new behavior”
- It started on April13th, 1988 on a balmy spring evening. Just a new workout routine that grew into a fad.
“Do all the cubs that attempt to swim these long distances survive? We don’t know.”
- Yes – 100%. Amazing but true Polar Bear cub fact. Polar Bear cubs NEVER, EVER drown while swimming hundreds of miles. Sadly, they also NEVER make it to the World Series.
Undoubtedly these brilliant researchers are among the 97%.
Imagine that! A species with the Latin name Ursus maritimus can routinely swim 10s of miles in the ocean! Who knew?