Is this the saddest polar bear on earth?
EMACIATED and dragging an injured leg, this polar bear is unlikely to survive long. It is thought the female bear was hurt while hunting a walrus and the injury has led to a struggle to find food.
The animal was captured on camera by nature photographer Kerstin Langenberger. She says the image symbolises the plight of the polar bear.
Germany-based Ms Langenberger, posted the image, taken in Norway’s Svalbard region in the Atlantic Ocean, of a ‘horribly thin’ injured bear on Facebook last month. The image was shared 41,000 times.
She claims the picture is evidence of retreating sea ice. Females are particularly affected as they tend to stay on the pack ice with their young and have an increasing struggle to find food, she wrote. She added: ‘Only few times I have seen beautifully fat mothers with beautifully fat young. Many times I have seen horribly thin bears, and those were exclusively females – like this one. A mere skeleton, hurt on her front leg, possibly by a desperate attempt to hunt a walrus while she was stuck on land.’
But Ian Stirling, a polar bear expert at the University of Alberta in Canada, told the website Mashable that people should be careful about blaming climate change for the bear’s condition.
He said the bear was more likely old, sick or hurt – not starving because of a lack of prey or ice. ‘You have to be a little bit careful about drawing conclusions immediately,’ he said.