Polar bear numbers to fall as Arctic ice shrinks: study

Polar bear populations are likelyto fall by more than 30 per cent by around mid-century as globalwarming thaws Arctic sea ice, experts said on Thursday in themost detailed review of the predators to date.

The report, by the International Union forConservation of Nature (IUCN), estimated there are between 22,000 and
31,000 polar bears in the Arctic and said they will beincreasingly vulnerable as their habitat shrinks.

"Climate change will continue to seriously threaten polarbear survival in the future," Inger Andersen,IUCNdirector general, said of the study, based on updated counts and newprojections of sea ice since a previous review in 2008.

It said there was a high probability that "the global polarbear population will decline by more than 30 per cent over the
next 35 to 40 years,"broadly reaffirming findings from 2008.

Andersen urged almost 200 nations, meeting at a UNsummiton climate change in Paris from Nov. 30 toDec. 11, to restrictgreenhouse gas emissions to slow the melt. The IUCN groupsscientists, governments and other experts.

Polar bear numbers have risen in some regions in recent yearsbecause of better protection and bans on hunting, but estimatesof overall populations from past decades are vague.

The shrinkage in sea ice, which in September 2012 was themost severe since satellite records began, will make it everharder for polar bears to catch seals that live on the ice, thereport said.

The IUCN said a Red List of animals and plants that itcompiles found that 23,250 species were endangered of 79,837
assessed so far.

Polar bears are listed as "vulnerable,"theleast endangered category on a scale that ends with "extinct."