We're celebrating Polar bears for World Animal Day today because they're - excuse the pun - so cool. My little flower and I drew and coloured in these guys with oil pastels which was great fun, but pretty messy, and probably not something we should've done before school as she ended up wearing the pastels. Not so cool!
Living in countries that ring the Arctic Circle: Canada, Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Norway, these beautiful white bears have sadly declined by forty percent in the last decade (https://polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears/habitat/).
Polar bears need seals to survive, and seals rely on ice, but due to global warming, the ice is melting, so it's pretty clear to see what's happening. However, with new technology allowing scientists to learn and monitor how polar bears move on the ice, their activity patterns and energy needs, we'll be better equipped to understand how we can help them survive in the future (https://www.wwf.org.uk/what-we-do/projects/tracking-polar-bears).
So hopefully these sweet, snowy looking bears - which by the way, you can't stroke as I've had to explain a number of times to children - will continue to roam the ice for future generations.
