A polar bear cub is comforted by its mother as they drift miles from shore on a rapidly shrinking ice floe. Photo: Eric Lefranc / Solent

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 12:40PM GMT 02 Mar 2010 The future looks bleak for this polar bear and her cub huddled on a rapidly shrinking iceberg 12 miles out to sea. The pair became stranded after climbing onto the chunk of ice during a expedition to hunt seals. Soon the ice floe shrank down to just a few yards and rapidly drifted down the Olga Strait of Svalbard in Norway. But although the bears look frightened, huddled together in the centre of the iceberg, experts predicted that the agile swimmers will be able to get safely back to shore. Images of polar bears stranded out at sea are often used to highlight the affect of global warming on the North Pole. Sea ice has retreated dramatically in the past decade and some scientists predict that the Arctic could be largely ice free during the summer in the next 20 years. Eric Lefranc, 40, who took the photograph while cruising in the area, doubted the cub would survive. “If she was able to leave her baby, the mother would probably have survived but our guide was quite pessimistic about the survival of the cub, who probably drowned,” he said. “Some of the members on our trip were in despair. They wanted to take the bears with us and bring them to the nearest land which was obviously impossible.” …

Will polar bears make it back to shore?