Chapter 1 Bear North of the A blinding snowstorm rages at the top of the world Long winters cover huge spans of ice and snow in darkness The winter darkness in the Arctic lasts for months The Arctic is one of the harshest places to live on Earth But even in this punishing place life is rich Ringed seals glide in the water between ice floes A beluga whale swims under the ice searching for prey But the whale is only interested in fish for dinner The serious predator is the polar bear lurking nearby The hunter crouches low in the snow as white as its surroundings Suddenly the tip of a seal's nose appears in a hole in the ice Wide paws and sharp claws reach into the water They pull the seal onto land The polar bear has caught its next meal
There are 19 recognized populations of polar bears in five different countries floe a large sheet of floating ice
The amount a polar bear eats depends on how much it weighs On average a polar bear eats between 10 and 20 percent of its body mass at every meal This great Northern bear is at the top of the Arctic food chain Unlike other bears polar bears eat blubber They prefer the blubber of ringed seals and bearded seals To go with their diet of blubber bears eat anything that gives them energy Some foods include fish seabirds and their eggs and even beluga whales and walruses In some cases a bear will eat the blubber from an animal and discard the rest of the kill The meat alone does not provide enough calories for the polar
bear to survive Polar bears fear no natural enemies except other polar bears But the largest of the living bears is still in danger Polar bears hunt on the sea ice In winter ice covers 90 percent of the ocean’s surface Bears walk across the ice to hunt But during the summer the ice melts Polar bears need to swim from one ice patch to another to find food But climate change is causing the ice to freeze later and melt earlier As a result the bears must live off the fat stored in their bodies for longer periods of time Bears have to swim greater distances too The long swim at sea is hard on their bodies If tired or weak bears drown Without help the next 100 years may be the end of the great white bear A polar bear can swim as far as 62 miles 100 kilometers between ice floes
