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The Changing World of the Polar Bear
Knopf
November 2009
On Sale: November 17, 2009
416 pages
ISBN: 0307270599
EAN: 9780307270597
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Polar bears—fierce and majestic—have captivated us for
centuries. Feared by explorers, revered by the Inuit, and
beloved by zoo goers everywhere, polar bears are a symbol
for the harsh beauty and muscular grace of the Arctic.
Today, as global warming threatens the ice caps’ integrity,
the polar bear has also come to symbolize the peril that
faces all life on earth as a result of harmful human
practices. Here, the acclaimed science writer Richard Ellis
offers an impassioned and moving statement on behalf of
polar bears—and all they stand for. Ellis gives a vivid and brilliantly articulated picture of
earth’s largest land predators—including their hunting,
mating, and hibernation habits. Polar bears are
exceptionally well suited for hunting—especially when it
comes to ringed seals, their favorite prey, which they can
smell from more than a mile away. But as the ice melts in
the Arctic, the ability of polar bears to find food
diminishes in spite of their incredible physical
capacities. Some bears will vainly take to the water in
search of ice on which to hunt, and many of them swim until
they drown. In the past twenty years alone, the world
population of polar bears has shrunk by half. Today they
number just 22,000. Still, On Thin Ice is an ode, not an elegy: Ellis reminds
us that the extinction of the polar bear—and the
disappearance of our ice caps—is not inevitable. While the
killing of polar bears remains a matter of ritual solemnity
among the Inuit, U.S. government officials continue to balk
at placing the polar bear on the endangered species list
because doing so would place the bears’ territory off-
limits for oil drilling. As the polar bears’ habitat
disappears beneath them, their survival rests entirely on
our willingness to take such critical steps. Urgent and stirring, On Thin Ice is both a celebration and
a rallying cry on behalf of one of earth’s greatest natural
treasures.
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