Polar Bears Show Signs of Mysterious Illness Biologists have
found Polar Bears in the Beaufort Sea with hair loss and skin
lesions. Those are the same symptoms that have sickened ice
seals and walruses in the arctic since last summer and led the
federal government to declare the incident an unusual mortality
event. Scientists are just beginning an investigation into
whether polar bears are suffering from the same thing. “The
first day we observed it was on March 21st and we had three
captures and two of them had Alopecia, which is the skin loss
and so it was like, ‘oh that’s interesting.’ Then we started
picking it up on other animals in later march so it was like,
this is more than normal.” So far, the field scientists have
found hair loss on nine of the 33 bears they’ve captured. The
bears have skin lesions on their head, neck and ears. Degange
says they have found polar bears with similar symptoms since
1999, but the number of effected bears makes this year unusual:
“The bears appear to be healthy otherwis