Comment: Polar Bears - Press Office

Comment: Polar bear 鈥榠nvasion'

Published on: 14 February 2019

Writing for The Conversation, Dr Niki Rust discusses how climate change is making human-wildlife conflicts worse.

were all during the past two decades and the ever were recorded in 2018 鈥� a heat increase from 2017 equivalent to that of the Hiroshima bomb. Climate change is here and it鈥檚 already wreaking havoc.

The polar bear 鈥� something of a poster child for climate change 鈥� is just one of countless victims in this warming world. It鈥檚 thought that if global temperatures continue to which is likely to happen if we do nothing to reduce our carbon emissions, could be lost from Earth鈥檚 most biodiverse places.

As ocean temperatures melt ice sheets 鈥� the hunting grounds of polar bears 鈥� these large carnivores have to search new areas for food, which is why 鈥渋nvaded鈥� a Russian town in February 2019, looking for their next meal. Locals were frightened to go outside 鈥� with good reason: .

Unfortunately, climate change is only going to make these negative interactions between humans and wildlife more common. Already, while Australia heats up, wildlife is seeking refuge in towns. in search of food and have had to be hosed down by locals to stop them from overheating.

In southern Africa, more frequent droughts have meant to eat crops and pilfer water from storage tanks. Most wild animals are naturally averse to being so close to humans, so their incursions into our lives shows how desperate they are getting.

As climate change begins to take its toll on humans, by reducing crop productivity for example, we are likely to become less tolerant of these sorts of human-wildlife conflicts. Poor African villagers who have had their entire yearly crop destroyed by a herd of hungry elephants can hardly be blamed for wanting to get rid of the problem by killing the animals.

Sadly, elephants 鈥� like most other species 鈥� are already experiencing in their populations and this is almost exclusively due to human activities.

Juvenile elephants try to reach water in a storage tank in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Climate change will exacerbate conflicts over natural resources between and within species 鈥� . For example, some observers have suggested climate change was partly responsible for the uprisings, as and inflamed tensions. If conflicts within our own species can鈥檛 be overcome, there is little hope for mitigating conflicts with other species 鈥� especially as resources become scarcer.

But there is a small glimmer of hope 鈥� there are effective methods to reduce damage caused by wildlife. Polar bears can be scared away from human settlements by and water tanks can be made . These technical fixes can help limit immediate conflict between wildlife and humans in the short term, providing much-needed relief in poor communities from the damaging effects of intruding wildlife.

Realistically however, technical fixes to human-wildlife conflict are only a temporary stopgap. To truly address the issue, we must focus on the . Carbon emissions must be reduced 鈥� not only for the sake of wildlife but for the survival of humans too.

Wildlife habitat must be protected to ensure that species have space and food without needing to enter human settlements. Equally, societies must address their insatiable demand for natural resources, reduce and .

Much of this is easier said than done, of course. Without political will and sufficient funding all of this falls short. Global leaders must step up to the task 鈥� and it is partly up to ordinary people to pressure them to act. Movements such as the and the school students organising are an encouraging start and must be built upon.

We need to cause an uproar like our lives depend on it 鈥� because they do. We have no planet B, as the refrain goes 鈥� and neither do the planet鈥檚 8.7m other species.

, Postdoctoral Researcher,

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

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