num_pages: 416
description: Polar bearsfierce and majestichave 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 bearsand all they stand for.Ellis gives a vivid and brilliantly articulated picture of earths largest land predatorsincluding their hunting mating and hibernation habits. Polar bears are exceptionally well suited for huntingespecially 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 22000.Still  On Thin Ice is an ode not an Ellis reminds us that the extinction of the polar bearand the disappearance of our ice capsis 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 earths greatest natural treasures.
language: English
title: On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear
publisher: Knopf