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On the ice and land of Hudson Bay, Manitoba, is my home. Ice! I love ice—love to slide and scoot on it, love to crouch on its edge and hunt ringed seals, love bounding from one ice floe to the next. Ice is my paradise. Though, in recent years it seems I spend less time on the ice and more time on land scavenging food from humans’ garbage cans. I spend less time on my beloved Arctic ice because the ice is disappearing.
Things are changing rapidly where I live. In my lifetime, I have watched the spring thaw come earlier and earlier as the winter freeze arrives later and later. In April, when sea ice once stretched to the horizon, now only endless waves of Arctic waters lap at the sky’s edge. No ice. Without ice, I cannot hunt for ringed seals. And without ringed seals I become very hungry.
This summer was particularly tough. At the end of September when the ice should have started returning, open ocean remained and delayed the journey to my favorite ringed seal sites. So, this winter I’m more than a month late hunting my first seal of the season, and yes, I’m hungry, very hungry.
According to climate scientists, September of 2007 now holds the all-time record low for Arctic sea ice minimums, which explains why the ice was no where to be found. I am hoping that this past summer was just a fluke, an anomaly, and that next September the ice will return. I hope I always have sea ice, that my cubs will always have ice. Always to have ice and the seals it brings…
What can you do to make sure Polar Bear will always have ice in the Arctic?
Join the Center for Biological Diversity today.
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