Wildlife Photography - International Polar Bear Day, February 27

Every year, on February 27, the world celebrates International Polar Bear Day. With our planet's gradual warming in the last few decades or so due to climate change, the plight of Polar bears have become the proverbial Canary in the Coal Mine for our fragile planet.

The Polar bear is the largest living land carnivore, with adult males growing to over 8 feet in length and some weighing close to one ton. The heaviest recorded bear was about 2,300 lbs. There is also evidence the largest Kodiak Brown bears in Alaska can grow to about the same weight. The Polar bear is immediately recognizable from the distinctive white color of its thick fur. The only parts of the body not covered by fur are the foot pads and the tip of its nose, which are black, revealing the dark color of the skin underneath the pelt.

The neck of the Polar bear is longer than in other species of bears, and the elongated head has small ears. Polar bears have large strong limbs and huge front paws which are used as paddles for swimming. The toes are not webbed, but are excellent for walking on snow as they bear non-retractable claws which dig into the snow like ice-picks.

Females are about half the size of males, although a pregnant female with stored fat can exceed 1,000 pounds in weight. Polar bear cubs weigh about 2 lbs at birth. They look similar in appearance to adults, though they have much thinner fur. Polar bears are found throughout the circumpolar Arctic on ice-covered waters, from Canada, to Norway, parts of the US, the former USSR and Greenland. The furthest south the Polar bears occur all year round is James Bay in Canada, which is about the same latitude as London. During the winter, when the ice extends further south, Polar bears move as far south as Newfoundland and into the northern Bering Sea.

Although Polar bears have no natural predators, male bears sometimes kill young cubs for food or to try and mate with their mothers. In addition, there are also isolated poaching incidents and limited trophy hunting permitted by law. Another big threat to these endangered animals is the warming of the Arctic region and pack ice are forming later and later every year. Polar bears depend on the pack ice to hunt seals and the early ice melt is forcing them to spend more time and energy looking for food and finding fewer seals. They face an uncertain future as the sea ice melt faster and faster in the summer.

My readers know I am The Wildlife Ho-tographer. One of my favorite animals in wildlife photography is the Polar bear. You can see my equipment bag and works on MichaelDanielHo.com  

Canon and WWF - Arctic Climate Change Research

Big male Polar bear traversing ice floes in Svalbard

 Fresh Polar bear tracks on ice floes in Svalbard

As a wildlife photographer and conservationist, I travel to the high Arctic to photograph their floral and fauna and see for myself how climate change has affected the environment at (almost) the top of the world - the archipelago of Svalbard. In particular, Polar bears' feeding and mating patterns are adversely impacted as the sea ice are melting earlier and faster and forming later. You can see more Polar bear photos and Arctic wildlife on my website MichaelDanielHo.com

LONDON, 3rd September 2014 – Canon Europe, world leader in imaging solutions, and WWF International have released findings from two of their research programmes recording the state of the environment and climate change in the Arctic. As part of its role as Conservation Imaging Partner, Canon sponsored WWF International’s recent scientific expeditions to the islands of Svalbard (April 2014), near Norway, and Laptev Sea in Russia (August 2013).

The WWF-Canon & Norwegian Polar Institute’s expedition to Svalbard this year aimed to collect critical data about Europe’s most westerly polar bear population and how the locations of their dens for giving birth are changing. Just three of the 29 adult females encountered by the research team had a cub born that year. Although the researchers cautioned against reading too much into that fact, it is known that in other parts of the Arctic, disappearing sea ice is affecting the bears’ reproductive success.

The samples collected by the research team have also allowed a team of DNA specialists to isolate, for the first time, polar bear DNA from a footprint left in the snow. The next step for the lab at SPYGEN is to see if DNA captured this way can tell researchers more about the individuals that left the tracks. This new technique could dramatically cut the investment required and overcome challenges associated with the way scientists currently capture such information, so monitoring bear populations could be done more easily in future.

The previous WWF-Canon expedition in 2013, to the Taimyr Peninsula in the Laptev Sea, near Siberia, Russia, aimed to determine if there are genetically-distinct Laptev populations of walrus, or whether the animals there are related to one or more of the adjacent populations. Scientists needed to answer this question in order to develop effective status monitoring systems for both species and to determine the actions needed for their protection in an area of increased commercial shipping. The results from the first lab tests showed that Laptev’s walruses are closer to Pacific walrus in genetic makeup than Atlantic walrus, but also show enough differences from both to be considered a distinct population.

The expeditions to Svalbard and the Laptev Sea were preceded by a voyage, “Sailing to Siku” from Greenland through Canada’s High Arctic in 2012, designed to help assess the future management options for that area, and to raise awareness of the Last Ice Area, where summer sea ice is projected to persist longest. Canon sponsored professional photographers to join each expedition: Thorsten Milse, Alexey Ebel and Brutus Östling. Canon imaging equipment was also used by the expeditions’ teams on all three trips to capture images of the wildlife they encountered along the way and record events.

“Our partnership with Canon has left us a valuable legacy,” says Clive Tesar of WWF’s Global Arctic Programme. “It has helped produce new scientific knowledge, it has introduced millions of people worldwide to the challenges faced by a warming Arctic, and it has left us with a wealth of images to introduce millions more to the beauty and importance of the Arctic.”

Susan Stuart, Sustainability Director, Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa, commented: “Imaging has a powerful role to play in supporting scientific research and we are proud that Canon expertise has helped WWF record and promote awareness of the climate change. The discoveries from our two most recent Arctic expeditions show how important WWF International’s research in one of the least-explored regions of the world really is.”

Canon Europe has been a conservation partner of WWF International since 1998. The partnership demonstrates Canon Europe’s dedication to a sustainable future in which humans live in harmony with the natural world.