Cue hysterical hand clasping from NBC, an animal has died in the wilderness. This has never before happened.

Experts fear polar bears will increasingly suffer a similar fate as global warming melts the sea ice that allows them to hunt for their main source of food.

[…]

“From his lying position in death the bear appears to simply have starved and died where he dropped,” Stirling said. “He had no external suggestion of any remaining fat, having been reduced to little more than skin and bone.”

My honest and genuine first thought was that would look awesome in my living room.

My second thought was this story is full of [redacted].

Where NBC is freaking out like a sorority girl drunk for the first time on Zima, science is all chill the hell out.

The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic.

But “experts,” according to NBC, which seem to be just one dude, is for certain that climate change, and not hunting ability or anything else, is the reason why this bear is dead but all the other bears, which are multiplying and thriving at rates higher than said “experts” could ever have estimated, are somehow unaffected.