Heart-wrenching video shows polar bear starving to death in Baffin Islands
California : National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen captured a heart-wrenching video of a polar bear in its death throes. With the video, shared on social media, he wanted to bring the attention on the bleak future of polar bears that is diminishing with every passing day due to climate change.
Nicklen, a National Geographic photographer and the founder of conservation group SeaLegacy, was in Canada's Baffin Islands with other SeaLegacy members when he saw the bear scavenging for food, according to National Geographic.
Blame it on the climate change - a result of ever-increasing temperatures, rising sea levels and human-caused global warming - that polar bears are now dealing with deficiency of their nutritious food - seals.
Nicklen's Instagram video has received over 1 million views in less than three days with many left in tears after watching the poor, helpless bear.
"It’s a soul-crushing scene that still haunts me, but I know we need to share both the beautiful and the heartbreaking if we are going to break down the walls of apathy," Nicklen wrote in his Instagram post. "This is what starvation looks like. The muscles atrophy. No energy. It’s a slow, painful death."
Increasing amounts of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere are largely to blame for Arctic warming, according to the report.
"Short of action that effectively addresses the primary cause of diminishing sea ice, it is unlikely that polar bears will be recovered," the report says.
As per report by the channel, the deficiency of seals in the area leaves the bears with no option but to venture into human settlements for the need of food.
The FWS report says addressing Arctic warming requires "global action" — something Nicklen called for in his social media post.
"This large male bear was not old, and he certainly died within hours or days of this moment," he wrote. "But there are solutions. We must reduce our carbon footprint, eat the right food, stop cutting down our forests, and begin putting the Earth — our home — first."
