Polar Bears in Antarctica
An Antarctic native. No polar bears here. Photo copyright Glen Gould 2010.
A few people asked me if I saw any polar bears during my recent trip to Antarctica. No, I didn’t. Polar bears live in the Arctic. If you want to see them, either go to Canada (where 60% of them live) or get to some other Arctic location, like Point Barrow, Alaska. Find out more about them and their melting habitat on David Suzuki’s website.
One person asked me if I met any Antarctica natives. In fact, I met several thousands of them. They live there only part of the year, so you might argue they don’t qualify as natives. Unfortunately we had a big communication problem. I don’t speak penguin. Penguins are very communicative with each other. After watching them for awhile, I could understand their primary motivation in life—fish and reproduction. A few seem to have some other interests, like racing!
A Chinstrap and an Adele penguin race. Photo copyright Glen Gould 2010.
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January 29th, 2010 at 7:46 am
Neat birds. I wonder if they hybridize.
January 29th, 2010 at 8:30 am
I didn’t see any evidence of that. They have very different personalities. I’m not sure they’d get along!
January 29th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
OMG!!! Polar bears are already extinct in Antartica!!1! Oh, the humanity!
January 29th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
The tragic extinction of the Antarctic polar bear should be a wake up call to just how serious global warming really is.
January 29th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Actually they are not extinct. Polar bears never lived in Antarctica, that’s my point. There aren’t any mammals that hang out year round on the land/ice except humans. Eons ago, when Antarctica was part of Gowanda, there were mammals. Scientist know this because of the fossils they’ve found.
January 29th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
There use to be some pretty wicked megafauna in Antarctica but then during dinosaur time, the climate use to be like Northern California is now.
http://csotonyi.com/Cryolophosaurus_ellioti_Csotonyi.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3458887.stm
I bet this baby could take on a Polar Bear any time.
The Wanderer
January 29th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Sorry, I forgot to include my sarcasm face. The state of the internets is depressing when the sarcasm needs to be expressly noted.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
The Digital Rabbit is a little naive and doesn’t pick up sarcasm. Sorry!!! What is the sarcasm emoticon?