The research released on Friday was sent to the Fish and Wildlife Service. A decision on the bears' status is expected in January.
Without enough sea ice, polar bears would be forced onto land, but they are inefficient hunters once they get out of the water and ice, the researchers said. The bears' disappearance would probably take place as young cubs failed to survive to adulthood and females were unable to reproduce successfully.
 KOMO | Polar Bear Population Seen Declining
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The first polar bears probably first appeared about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, and the species has not lived through a period as warm as the one predicted by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientists said.
In a series of reports this year, the U.N. climate panel said with 90 percent probability that global climate change was occurring and that human activities contributed to it. The emission of greenhouse gases -- including carbon dioxide from petroleum-fueled vehicles and coal-fired power plants -- is the prime human cause of this warming trend, the panel said.
Global warming was an important topic of discussions of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum this week in Australia and will be the subject of a special U.N. meeting later this month.
Polar Bear SOS! Tell the Bush Administration to protect polar bears and their critical habitat. The Bush Administration's proposal to list the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act is a crucial first step toward ensuring a future for these magnificent Arctic creatures. Yet the administration's proposal does not designate "critical habitat" for protection, even though melting habitat from global warming is the main threat to the polar bear's survival. [Please send your comment: http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/polarbearsos_0407.] The goal is 500,000 comments!!
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