Posted on 02/04/2007 7:36:02 AM PST by blam
Iceland fears bears that go with the floe
By Gethin Chamberlain, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:46am GMT 04/02/2007
The oceans may be warming and air temperatures rising, but in recent days Iceland has bucked the global climate trend.
Thick pack ice, the like of which has not been seen for decades, stretched into the western fjords as temperatures plummeted and a bitter wind blew in from -Greenland.
The ice has proved a headache for fishermen, who have been unable to put to sea, but it is what comes with pack ice that has caused most concern: polar bears.
People living around the fjord of Dyrafjördur, which last week was almost filled with the ice, were keeping an eye on the sea, conscious that the bears live on the pack ice that covers much of the Arctic ocean.
When chunks break off, as appears to have happened last week, the bears become stranded, drifting wherever the ice takes them.
There have been numerous accounts of bears making land on the shores of Iceland in the past. But it is the bears who tend to come off worse in encounters with the Icelanders, who take a distinctly unsentimental approach to wildlife.
In 1993, the last time a bear is known to have made it to Icelandic waters, it was caught by a fishing crew and killed. It is believed to have been stranded on a piece of pack ice that broke off the main pack and melted, leaving the animal swimming in the open ocean 70 miles from the main ice sheet. Five years earlier, the last bear to make it to shore was promptly shot when it turned up near the town of Haganesvík in the north of the country.
Coastguard commander Asgrinur Asgrinsson remembers a polar bear coming ashore on the island of Grimsey, north of the mainland, when he was a child. It was shot and stuffed and now has pride of place in the museum in the town of Husavik.
There are thought to be about 25,000 polar bears in the wild and environmentalists have warned that they are in danger of becoming extinct as their habitat shrinks. Climate change scientists say that with temperatures rising, the pack ice may have melted completely by 2040, leaving the Arctic ocean navigable and the polar bears with nowhere to go.
Last week's return of the pack ice to Iceland initially suggested that those predictions might have been overly pessimistic.
"I have lived here my whole life, but I have never seen so much pack ice before," said Helgi Árnason, a farmer in -Dyrafjördur.
"Forty years ago, large icebergs drifted on to beaches but it was nothing compared with this.
"[Pack ice] used to be Iceland's ancient enemy, but we stay calm so long as the situation doesn't worsen. This is just to remind us where we live."
According to the coastguard, the build-up of ice was the result of a combination of a high pressure system to the south of the mainland coupled with winds blowing in from Greenland, 300 miles to the west.
"It looked like the main pack ice had reached the coast," said Mr Asgrinsson. "But in fact it was a piece of the main pack that had broken away."
A report by a panel of international scientists, published on Friday, blamed greenhouse gas emissions for rising global average air and ocean temperatures, the widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea levels.
The report said that average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years.
A recent Nasa study showed that Greenland is losing 53 cubic miles of ice every year, twice the rate in 1996.
The melting polar ice means polar bears are not the only hazard for those living in the region.
Another study suggested that the thaw was luring killer whales further north.
Researchers said the whales were attacking a wide range of sealife, including beluga, bowhead and narwhal whales.
Jeff Higdon, from the University of Manitoba and the Fisheries and Oceans Canada monitoring project, said the increasing areas of open water meant the whales were able to venture farther into the Arctic.
"We've got reports of killer whales attacking every marine mammal in the Arctic," he said.
Generally, if you shoot a bear, you have to eat the meat. That's the law. By the way, a good bear roast tastes just like prime rib. Bears are closely related to pigs, and are good eating.
ROFL!
Now I have to clean the coffee off of my monitor lol
"I read somewhere that their periods attract bears. The bears can smell the menstruation." - Brick Tamland
"When chunks break off, as appears to have happened last week, the bears become stranded, drifting wherever the ice takes them."
I guess the author never saw "stranded" polar bears swim from ice floe to ice floe.
Bears go where the food is... by swimming and walking, and by drifting floes.
That is not correct.
Polar bear, the other white meat. Tastes like chicken.....
You seem to have the same problem we do, most the the media end up in the hands of the left. Why is it that conservatives are so bad about taking over or developing the mass media?
Great Photo !
Ah, for the good old days . . . . . . BEFORE Global Warming (which was supposed to be Global Cooling). Things were so much simpler then.
Those were the DAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZE!!!!!
Actually bears are closer to dogs. Pigs and bears are both omnivores however, so their meat would tend to taste similar.
Polar bear liver is deadly poisonous.
You will die from an overdose of vitamin D, believe it or not.
" Ban mankind and all problems will be solved"
Turn them all into rugs!
I thought it was vitamin A.
So you're proposing a Buffalo Bill (Silence of the Lambs) people rug or did you mean bear rugs? I can think of a few people to nominate but I still wouldn't want them in my livingroom.
Bear rugs, I think people would make rotten leather plus the lack of fur wouldn't work for rugs.
Shoot, 'Flo and Kiss My Grits' rings a bell but I can't place the program!
The phrase "kiss my grits" invoked a lot of thoughts in people's minds in the early days of the sitcom Alice...
http://www.geocities.com/classics4ever/alice/cast/holliday/polly.htm
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