Conservation Magazine - Lonely Polar Nights

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Lonely Polar Nights
Selective hunting of male polar bears could dangerously skew sex ratios

By Nick Atkinson
January-March (Vol. 9, No. 1)

Molnár, P.K. et al. 2008. Modelling the mating system of polar bears: A mechanistic approach to the Allee effect. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 275(1631): 217-226.

Canadian male polar bears (Ursus maritimus) spend much of their time tracking potential mates across the rapidly disappearing sea ice, but a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society warns that climate change is not the only threat to their survival. University of Alberta biologist Péter Molnár and colleagues subjected polar bear mating behavior to computer modeling (nothing is sacred in biology) to assess the effects of hunting on population dynamics.

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