Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323452204578288343627282034
Author Zac Unger was
originally drawn to the arctic circle to write a “mournful elegy” about how
global warming was decimating the polar bear populations. He was surprised to
find that the polar bears were not in such dire straits after all.
“There are far more
polar bears alive today than there were 40 years ago,” Unger told NPR in an
interview about his new book, “Never Look a Polar Bear in The Eye.”
“There are about
25,000 polar bears alive today worldwide. In 1973, there was a global hunting
ban. So once hunting was dramatically reduced, the population exploded.”
“This is not to say
that global warming is not real or is not a problem for the polar bears,” Unger
added. “But polar bear populations are large, and the truth is that we can’t
look at it as a monolithic population that is all going one way or another.”
According to the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, there are an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears
worldwide, living in Canada, Greenland, the northern Russian coast, islands of
the Norwegian coast, and the northwest Alaskan coast.
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