Polar Bear Snow Day at the San Francisco Zoo
Posted by at Jan 19th, 2010 in Climate Change
Filed under: Climate Change , Plants and Wildlife
Pike the Polar Bear at the SF Zoo enjoys a snow day. Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images
It’s been one of the coldest and snowiest winters on record on the East Coast , but here in San Francisco we’ve been lucky enough to escape with a few frigid, rainy days.
Not everyone appreciates our temperate weather. Some residents probably wish we’d get more of the white stuff, including the three polar bears who live at the San Francisco Zoo .
Two of the bears, Pike (pronounced PEE-KA), and Andy, (who is the star of the popular children’s book “Andy Bear,”) got a special holiday surprise the week before Christmas, courtesy of the San Francisco Ice Company: snow!
The San Francisco Ice Company donated ten tons of ice, which the zoo chipped into snowflakes for the polar bears. Pike and Andy got to celebrate the first day of winter by rolling around in the icy fun.
Polar bears are so well adapted to living in cold weather that they actually have a much harder time dealing with warm weather, easily becoming dehydrated. Their habitat is the Arctic, with over 60% of the world’s 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears living in Canada.
The species has been hit especially hard by climate change, with melting polar ice changing their habitat on a nearly daily basis. The greatest challenge is that without ice they can’t hunt seals, their primary source of food.
Polar bears are listed as “threatened” on the Endangered Species list, and many experts believe their numbers will continue to decline as global warming continues to change the landscape of the Arctic.
For now, polar bears in captivity, like Pike and Andy, help us understand the breed and their habitats. And we can thank them for this education in little ways, like giving them an occasional snow day! Polar Bear Snow Day at the San Francisco Zoo originally appeared on Green Daily on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:02:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
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