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Polar Bears
The "Tundra Buggy" Reports
WWF – in partnership with North America’s top polar bear researchers, conservationists, government leaders, photographers, and filmmakers – is participating in an exciting global program organized by Polar Bears International (PBI) to alert the public that higher temperatures are having an immediate and negative impact on polar bears.
Did you know that polar bears can stand upright to an imposing height of over nine feet?
© WWF
Learn more about polar bear behavior and watch polar bear videos!
In Churchill, Manitoba, WWF Polar Bear biologist Geoff York and WWF biologist Pete Ewins are helping document and report on the ice conditions there and discuss how sea-ice changes affect polar bears. Churchill, on the shores of Hudson Bay in Canada, is an ideal place to observe polar bears as they gather there every fall to wait for the bay to freeze and become their highway to Arctic feeding grounds. Due to climate change, the bears have recently had to spend longer on shore, away from their prime food source.
The WWF/PBI 'Tundra Buggy' in Churchill, Hudson Bay, Canada.
© WWF
See more photos of the tundra buggy
“This is an important opportunity,” says Geoff York. “I know people are distracted by the global credit crunch right now, but it is critical that they focus on a bigger problem, climate change in the Arctic.
This bear population is clearly telling us climate change is beginning to bite in the Arctic, and that has implications for the rest of the world. We can and must take urgent and effective action on climate change, not just for the sake of these bears, but also for our own sakes.”
The program also involves trips out on the tundra in a fully wired 'Tundra Buggy' that can take the experts out among the polar bears and allow them to broadcast live to educational institutions and media around the world.
From the *Tundra Buggy, WWF experts will send out photos, videos, podcasts and more from the field, so stay tuned!
*From the Tundra Buggy(r) Lodge and made possible by Polar Bears International (PBI).
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