The King of Pointland

Man 1, Bears 0

From today's WSJ (subscription required):

Is Global Warming Killing the Polar Bears?
By JIM CARLTON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 14, 2005; Page B1

It may be the latest evidence of global warming: Polar bears are 
drowning.

Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of 
polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long
distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The 
bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice 
floes.

In a quarter-century of aerial surveys of the Alaskan coastline 
before 2004, researchers from the U.S. Minerals Management Service 
said they typically spotted a lone polar bear swimming in the ocean 
far from ice about once every two years. Polar-bear drownings were so 
rare that they have never been documented in the surveys.

But in September 2004, when the polar ice cap had retreated a record 
160 miles north of the northern coast of Alaska, researchers counted 
10 polar bears swimming as far as 60 miles offshore. Polar bears can 
swim long distances but have evolved to mainly swim between sheets of 
ice, scientists say.

The researchers returned to the vicinity a few days after a fierce 
storm and found four dead bears floating in the water. "Extrapolation 
of survey data suggests that on the order of 40 bears may have been 
swimming and that many of those probably drowned as a result of rough 
seas caused by high winds," the researchers say in a report set to be 
released today.

...

Bears: Get out of the water and head south. Our economy is doing well, unemployment is low, and fish are cheap!