www.climatestorytellers.org/stories/subhankar-banerjee-polar-bear-habitat/Access to Food A Fundamental Species Right?
In late October 2000, I went with two friends Sanjeeban and Srikant to Churchill, a small town in Manitoba along the Hudson Bay in the Canadian subarctic. Tourists and photographers go there to see and photograph polar bears. Each autumn a fairly large number of bears gather on the tundra near Churchill and wait for Hudson Bay to freeze over so that they can go out onto the ice to hunt and eat again.
One polar bear eating another, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. Photo by Subhankar Banerjee, 2000 | gallery of photos
Each day we would go out on a buggy¡ªlarge vehicle with very high tires that allows safe viewing and picturing of bears. I came back with some decent photos. But I also came back with one photograph that has haunted me ever since¡ªone polar bear eating another. I never exhibited or published this photo until now. In it we see a juvenile bear eating a larger bear. The story goes like this as it was told to me by a local guide¡ªin the early morning hours a large bear killed another and ate as much as possible and then departed. When we arrived a smaller bear was eating what was left. I was also told that a large male does occasionally kill small cubs on ice to attract a female to mate, but it is highly unusual that a mature bear would kill another to eat. They¡¯re actually very social animals that like to hang out and play together.
Bears do however create problems by coming into the town of Churchill every now and then looking for food¡ªthey¡¯re hungry. To protect the residents and tourists from these bears the town has a system where the ¡®bear police¡¯ would catch these bears and put them in a ¡®polar bear jail¡¯ until the ice freezes, at which point the bear police would transport these bears by helicopter and drop them onto the ice so that the bears can hunt and find food on their own. But in 2000 when I was there no one in Churchill whom I talked to said anything about climate change as a possible problem for the bears or for their town.
Scientists however have been studying the Hudson Bay bears quite extensively for decades and here is their story. Due to climate change the ice of Hudson Bay is melting sooner than normal in spring and forming later than normal in autumn, leaving the bears stranded on land much longer than normal and reducing their feeding possibilities. Polar bears are unable to hunt on land. They¡¯re only able to hunt on ice. They starve while onshore, and in recent years when there has been very little ice they¡¯ve starved for five months straight.
Earlier this year Yale Environment 360 published an interview with biologist Andrew Derocher of University of Alberta who has been studying the Hudson Bay bears extensively with his colleagues. Title of the interview is ¡°For Hudson Bay Polar Bears, The End is Already in Sight.¡± In a paper published in Biological Conservation Derocher and his colleagues estimated that ¡°western Hudson Bay¡¯s polar bear population could well die out in 25 to 30 years¡± and in the Yale Environment 360 interview he stated these bears ¡°could be gone within a decade¡± if there are a few consecutive years of low sea ice conditions.
Those Churchill bears while onshore for months each year are starving and I doubt they¡¯re sleeping either, probably just dozing off while starving, will perish in my lifetime. This is my way of saying that eating and sleeping have a lot to do with survival.
On July 28 the United Nations declared ¡®Water a Fundamental Human Right.¡¯ It was a historic vote at the UN¡ª122 countries voted in favor of the resolution, more than 40 countries abstained including U. S., Canada and several industrialized countries. No country voted against the resolution. If you¡¯re curious why did U. S. and Canada abstain from voting for such a basic right to survival, particularly when the lead water activist Maude Barlow is Canadian? Corporations have huge influence on our governments and giving someone else the right to have clean¨Cfree¨Cwater could affect their right to have dirty¨Chuge¨Cprofits.
I¡¯d now raise the question should we not also establish ¡®Access to Food a Fundamental Species Right?¡¯
Henry Thoreau began his essay Walking with these words, ¡°I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil¡ªto regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.¡± In the essay he goes on to talking about other species. I¡¯ve carried that essay in my mind for a long time, but this year it has taken on particular significance. Earlier this year the UN announced that the world¡¯s governments failed to honor commitments they made eight years ago about reducing biodiversity loss. Our planet is currently experiencing the greatest rate of species extinction ever. Humans¡ªthat¡¯s us¡ªare driving these species to extinction by taking away their food and home. But we can also be the stewards and reduce the extinction rate and perhaps turn things around.
The polar bear critical habitat designation is very significant, because first and foremost it acknowledges that other species also have the right to survive on this planet.
