"I'd like to attribute my obsession with polar bears to a family tradition. My older cousins were given stuffed white Gund bears when they were born, and when I came out a decade later, the same polar bear was waiting for me in my crib. I named him Dee, and Dee came everywhere with me, so much so that he evolved into more of a noseless black bear over the years."
"My love for the bears wasn't just plush. A third grade science fair allowed me to spend every afternoon at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, using a miniature clipboard to record polar bears' activity levels as the temperatures dropped. Every school animal report was about polar bears. In college, when I decided to get a dog, I picked a fluffy white Golden Retrieverthe closest I could come to a domesticated polar bear."
A family tradition provided a stuffed white Gund bear named Dee that accompanied the narrator through childhood and gradually wore down into a noseless black bear. Early experiences included spending afternoons at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo recording polar bears' activity and choosing a fluffy white Golden Retriever as a domestic stand-in. Polar bear safaris offer opportunities to observe wild polar bears in their natural habitat. Climate change, driven by declining sea ice, undermines polar bears' hunting and breeding, with projections of two-thirds population loss by midcentury and potential local extinctions by 2100. Last Chance Tourism for endangered destinations raises ethical and environmental concerns.
Read at www.esquire.com
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