How many species of Bears are there?

Did you know there are seven different species of bears? The Polar Bear is just one of them, with a lifespan of 30 years! Wow, I didn't realize they could live SO long. Weighing up to 1,595 for males or 548 for females, one wouldn't realize how agile they can be. It is said that they are sleek, swift and remarkably agile in and out of the water. Polar Bears are solitary, with the exception of breeding and then gathering at a plentiful food source. 
Kelly found the information from Wildlife Explorer, International Masters Publisher (card 4)

Endangered Species

Check out U.S. Fish and Wildlife site.  They have great resources on conservation.  The endangered species section has a search for specific states and I know that my students are always more interested in what is happening in their own area. (Jane)

http://www.fws.gov/endangered/

Animals adaptation (Jeff)

I just thought this was interesting some of the ways that animals adapt to their environment.

How animals are adapted to live in the Arctic

CARIBOU are members of the deer family. Their thick fur coats have hollow hairs. This helps to keep them warm. They move across the Arctic in large herds. Caribou eat moss, lichens and green plants. For the winter they go to the forests of the south where trees give them protection from the wind and the snow. In the spring the caribou leave the forests and go to the tundra where the calves are born.

image credit : Bob Stevens; US Fish and Wildlife Service; license: public domain

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THE MUSK OXEN have thick overcoats of shaggy long straight hair that hang down to the ground. Their undercoats are thick brown fleece. Some of the coat is shed in the summer. They huddle together in groups for protection and to keep warm. When wolves attack, the musk oxen form a circle around the calves. The adults face outward and use their sharp horns for defence.

image credit: Jo Keller, USFWS; license: public domain

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WOLVES Tundra wolves live on the mainland. Arctic wolves live farther north on the islands. Tundra wolves are often brown or grey. Arctic wolves are smaller and white in colour. They have a thick undercoat of soft fur and an overcoat of long, thick hair. To help reduce heat loss, they have smaller more-rounded ears, a shorter muzzle and shorter legs than other wolves.Wolves hunt in small packs. Arctic wolves hunt musk oxen, caribou and arctic hares. They also eat lemmings, birds and ground squirrels.

image credit : Ber'Sophus ; license : Creative Commons

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THE WOLVERINE is a fierce and strong animal about the size of a bear cub. It is the largest member of the weasel family. It is most common on the mainland of Nunavut, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. The wolverine is short, with powerful legs and large feet. It looks like a small bear. Wolverine fur is used for trimming parka hoods.

image credit: Steve Hillebrand, USFWS; license : public domain

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THE ARCTIC FOX is hard to see in the snow. It has a thick white coat of fur for the winter. In the summer the coat is brownish-grey. The Arctic fox eats alot of lemmings. They also eat hares, birds' eggs and the chicks. If there is alot of food, the female has eleven or more pups, but if there is not much food she may have only five or six pups.
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THE ERMINE ( least weasel, or stoat ) lives wherever it can make a den to raise its young and store its food. The den is in a pile of rocks or loose earth. When lemmings are plentiful, so are weasels. Although they depend mostly on lemmings for food, they are not afraid to attack an Arctic hare. The adult male is about 30 cm. ( 12 in.) long including the tail. The female is smaller. This animal is slim so it can go into lemmings' tunnels. The winter coats are white, and summer coats are brown. Ermine are fast, very brave and always hungry. When the ermine kills an animal it takes the food home.

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LEMMINGS look like fat furry hamsters. The brown lemming and the collared lemming live in the Arctic. The brown lemming prefers wetter areas, while the collared lemming is usually seen in rocky places. The collared lemming turns white in winter.In the winter lemmings stay warm in tunnels under the snow. When summmer comes the lemmings leave their dens to feed on new leaves, grasses, roots and berries. If there is plenty of food a female lemming has as many as six sets of babies. Many arctic animals eat lemmings.

Brown Lemming image credit: Emily Weiser ; used with permission

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THE ARCTIC HARE lives farther north than any other hare. They live among the rocks on hillsides where they can hide from foxes, wolves, owls and other enemies. Hares eat grasses, willows and other plants. Their favorite meal is the arctic willow.Hundreds of them gather together in herds, to stay warm, and for protection from their many enemies. When a noise is heard they hop away in all directions. The fur of the hares that live farther south may change to gray or brown for the summer.

image : Steve Sayles ; license : Creative Commons

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image : Jim McCarthy, USFWS; license : public domain

ARCTIC GROUND SQUIRRELS make underground dens with lots of tunnels and rooms. They live in colonies . During the spring and summer they eat and eat (tundra plants, seeds, fruits) to prepare for a long sleep . In late summer they store food in their burrows. When they wake up in the spring there is stored food to eat until the new plants begin to grow. Ground squirrels are the only Arctic animals that hibernate. They line the burrows with lichens, leaves and musk ox hair, then roll up into a ball and sleep for seven months. The body temperature drops to just above freezing and the heartbeat slows down during hibernation.

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ARCTIC BIRDS

When the snow starts to melt hundreds of thousands of birds arrive to nest, raise their young and feed on Arctic plants and insects. There are seabirds, waterfowl, shore birds, song birds and many others. The birds nest on the rocky cliffs or along the shore. Others make their nests in the grass or on the ground.The flocks of migrating birds arrive in May or early June and leave in the fall to spend winter in warmer places. The ptarmigan, raven and snowy owl stay in the Arctic all year round. more about ARCTIC BIRDS

Snowy Owl  image credit : courtesy of Philip Greenspun ; copyright notice

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ARCTIC SEA MAMMALS

POLAR BEARS have a thick oily fur coat and a layer of blubber under their skin. They spend most of their time on the pack ice or in the water, where they can hunt their favorite food - the ringed seal. The white fur helps the bear sneak up on seals that are laying on the ice. In the summer it is harder to catch seals, so before summer arrives, the bears eat as much as they can to fatten up, then live off the fat in their bodies. The females digs a den in the snow to hibernate during the worst part of the winter. The cubs are born in the den.

image credit : US Fish and Wildlife Service, license: public domain

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bowhead and belugasWHALES are able to live in the cold waters of the Arctic. They have a thick layer of blubber under their skin. Only three whales make Nunavut their home - belugas, bowheads and narwhals.Bowheads can reach 18 metres in length. They almost became extinct due to overhunting in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Whalers wanted the whales' oil and baleen . They are still considered endangered in Nunavut.
Narwhals have long ivory tusks. They are threatened by overhunting for their tusks and meat.
The white belugas seem to be smiling all the time. They make noises that sound like chirps, trills, whistles and clicks. Belugas use their foreheads to smash the ice so they can get to the surface to breathe.
To learn more about these whales, go to --

*** ARCTIC WHALES ***

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Female HARP SEALS have their pups in early spring. They crawl out on the ice to give birth to their pups. For a few days the baby harp seals wear fluffy white coats of fur. Within two weeks, their coats turn dark grey. When the ice melts the harp seals swim north following the schools of fish.

young harp seal and mother*** more about SEALS ***

THE WALRUS has to eat thousands of krill and shellfish each day. With its thick whiskers, the walrus feels around in the water for krill and on the ocean floor for shellfish.Layers of blubber protect the walruses when they swim in the freezing Arctic seas and when they lie out on the ice in the bitter cold wind. Walruses are very noisy animals. They are often seen crowded together on ice floes or on the shore

Why is Biodiversity Important?

"At least 40 per cent of the world’s economy and 80 per cent of the needs of the poor are derived from biological resources. In addition, the richer the diversity of life, the greater the opportunity for medical discoveries, economic development, and adaptive responses to such new challenges as climate change."

The Convention about Life on Earth, Convention on Biodiversity web site.

We hear about Biodiversity and preserving species but often we miss out on the why.  This site gives specific examples of why we want to preserve species and have biodiversity in our world.  Scientists have even started attaching a monetary value to certain ecosystems or organisms to help the rest of us understand the importance of Biodiversity. (Jane Jones)
http://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares

Elephants mourn their dead

Elephant mourn thier dead article
(Jeff) this was a very interesting article I found.Why do elephants mourn their dead like humans.

Elephants mourn their dead

Rossella Lorenzi Discovery News

Friday, 4 November 2005

Elephants honour their dead, a practice once thought to be uniquely human (Image: iStockphoto)

Elephants pay homage to the bones of their dead, gently touching the skulls and tusks with their trunks and feet, according to the first systematic study of elephant empathy for the dead.

The finding provides the first hard evidence to support stories of elephant mourning, in which the pachyderms are said to congregate at elephant cemeteries, drawn by the bones of their kin.

It also shows that these animals display a trait once thought to be unique to humans, says Dr Karen McComb, a UK expert on animal communication and cognition at the University of Sussex.

"Most mammals show only passing interest in the dead remains of their own or other species," McComb and colleagues write in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Lions are typical in this respect: they briefly sniff or lick a dead of their own species before starting to devour the body.

Chimpanzees show more prolonged and complex interactions with dead social partners, but leave them once the carcass starts decomposing.

"In comparison, African elephants are reported not only to exhibit unusual behaviours on encountering the bodies of dead con-specifics, becoming highly agitated and investigating them with the trunk and feet, but also to pay considerable attention to the skulls, ivory and associated bones of elephants that are long dead," say the researchers.

Concrete Jungle

How far is too far when it comes to animal captivity?

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/29/5689748-concrete-jungle-department-stores-zoo-sparks-controversy-

Posted by Breanna

Animal Migration

Something I hadn't given much thought to and figured only birds do it, but taken from the National Geographic site is as follows:

From the African savannah to the frigid waters off Antarctica, from a Pacific island to the skies of North America, the mass movement of millions of creatures from one place to another is one of the most astonishing of all natural phenomena. But scientists who study the migration of creatures as disparate as the monarch butterfly and the southern elephant seal are motivated by more than just curiosity.

For migratory species, “put simply, migration is crucial for survival,” writes nature journalist and Zoological Society of London fellow Ben Hoare in his 2009 book, Animal Migration: Remarkable Journeys in the Wild. “It has evolved to enable animals to spend their life in two or more different areas, usually because a lack of food or a period of extreme weather makes it impossible to remain in the same location permanently.” Migratory animals also are driven by other imperatives, such as the need to find water or a mate, or to reach a place where they can reproduce.

Scientists also know that increasingly, many of these migratory species are threatened by the spread of human civilization, which increasingly encroaches upon their habitat and sometimes blocks access to the routes that species may have used for thousands of years. Additionally, humans sometimes compete with migratory animals for food or water sources, or destroy them through development.

“Saving the great migrations will be one of the most difficult conservation challenges of the 21st century,” according to ecologist David S. Wilcove, a Princeton University professor and author of the 2008 book No Way Home: The Decline of the World’s Great Animal Migrations. But if we fail to do so, we will pay a heavy price — aesthetically, ecologically, and even economically.” In the 19th and early 20th century, Wilcove notes, human hunting and destruction of habitat in North America drove the migratory passenger pigeon, once one of the most prolific species on the planet, into extinction. But even if species such as the wildebeest and the monarch butterfly manage to survive, he warns, their numbers may be so severely reduced that ecosystems in which they play an important role will be seriously damaged.

Read more: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/great-migrations-science#ixzz19Qjshegx