Every year, starting in late June, polar bears in the northern Canadian province of Manitoba, near the polar Hudson Bay, begin to melt and shrink, and polar bears must finally come ashore.
With their hunting skills on the ice nowhere to go, and their speed in the water no longer enough to compete with the seals, they had to take their chances in the meantime to find dead animals on the shore, basically nothing to eat, and they had to starve for months on empty stomps.
York, of Polar Bear Conservation International, said the bear is waiting for the ice to freeze and will likely stay ashore until mid-to-late November before returning to the hunt for real.
They lose about one or two kilograms a day while they're waiting on shore, and if they go on for more than 180 days, then things can start to go wrong.
A male polar bear without food can last an average of 180 days after landing, while a female bear can only last 117 days.
But as the planet warms, polar bears are spending more and more time on land starving, sometimes forced to eat seaweed.
According to a 2020 report in the journal Nature Climate Change, there were about 1,200 polar bears along the west coast of Hudson Bay in the 1980s.
Today there are at most 800.
Because they are in poor physical condition, they are more willing to take risks and may interact with humans as a result, York said.
The town OF Churchill, on the edge of Hudson Bay, is one of the closest places to polar bears, and the risk of polar bear invasion has increased as warming causes hunger.
Scientists and conservation groups have installed sophisticated radar monitoring systems to track the movement of polar bears 24 hours a day to ensure that they do not enter the warning area.
Patrols drive along the shoreline, using horns or shotgun noises to make sure children are safe from school.
Research shows that the Arctic Circle is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet.
With winter coming later every year, Churchill's polar bear and belugas eco-tourism is in danger, and the local dog sled vacation business, which has been running for three generations, is also suffering.
Forty years ago, the Hudson Bay had seven million square kilometers of ice in summer.
Now, half of it remains. With less ice to reflect sunlight, the dark sea absorbs more heat, creating a vicious cycle.
Recent sightings of strayed beluga whales in the Seine River in Paris and non-native foxes and wolves in the polar circle are evidence of a dramatic change in the environment.
Fortunately, there is still a chance to reverse the trend by lowering temperatures again, but scientists are warning to move fast, as the tipping point for far less sea ice is fast approaching.
