from some science journal thing:

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Observers flying over Alaska's northwest coast spotted nine polar bears in one day swimming in the open ocean.Scientists say this is an increase from previous surveys that may indicate warming conditions are forcing bears to make riskier, long-distance swims to stable sea ice or land.A federal marine contractor, Science Applications International Corp, spotted the bears in the Chukchi Sea during a survey flight.The survey flight was scouting land for the Minerals Management Service in advance of future offshore oil development.

The tidbit goes on to explain that polar bears are often forced to jump into the sea and swim to the next batch of ice if the ice field they are on breaks up in warm weather. A polar bear can swim 10 miles, no problem. A polar bear can swim 50 miles, maybe, if a storm or strong current does not interfere. A hundred miles? Not likely. Two hundred? Get serious. These 9 polar bears apparently had the bad luck to have their ice field fall apart. They looked around, saw no ice, and decided to swim north- most likely place to find ice. But the ice is 400 miles away. You do the math.

And the irony of it is that the airplane was not there to observe polar bears drowning. It was there to make observations in preparation for siting oil wells in the arctic

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edit: or even try to get help for the bears.

Post edited at 7:01 pm on Aug. 24, 2008 by rawrr

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