‘Soul crushing’ video of starving polar bear exposes threat of climate change

A heart-wrenching video of an emaciated polar bear scourging for food in Canada’s Baffin Island has gone viral.

The animal foams at the mouth as it buries its face into a metal barrel in search of food. In the final shot, the bear closes its eyes.

The video, made by photojournalist Paul Nicklen, showcases a glimpse of what could happen to the species if the Earth continues to warm.

Sharing the video, Nicklen wrote: “My entire Sea_Legacy team was pushing through their tears and emotions while documenting this dying polar bear.”

He remarked, “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. This is what starvation looks like. The muscles atrophy. No energy. It’s a slow, painful death. When scientists say polar bears will be extinct in the next 100 years, I think of the global population of 25,000 bears dying in this manner. There is no band aid solution. There was no saving this individual bear.”

The photojournalist added, “The simple truth is this—if the Earth continues to warm, we will lose bears and entire polar ecosystems. This large male bear was not old, and he certainly died within hours or days of this moment. 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.”

Canada is home to estimated 16,000 polar bears, which account for the majority of the world’s population. The federal government considers climate change the biggest long-term threat to the species.

A 2002 World Wildlife Fund report claims that climate change would eventually lead to the extinction of the polar bears. The report found that bears were moving from ice to land and unhealthily extending the bear’s fasting season.