My favorite animal!

It's hard to decide which animal I think it's my favorite. I've been trying to decide for quite a while now, but I've finally come up with the chosen one, which is the polar bear.

Polar bears (Ursus Maritimus) live in the northern Arctic, and they usually spend their time on ice floes. It's the world's largest meat-eater, and the largest one as well. Their fur is white, with black eyes, and black nose, but actually their very first skin layer (under the white one) is black, so it allows them to soak up as much heat as possible from the sun. They're great swimmers. They can swim for hours and hours at a time over long distances. Their height can reach 2 meters in females, and 2.6 in males, and their diet is based on seals mainly. I've heard something very "wise" that they do when they hunt them. Since their skin is white, but their nose is black, their skin can mimmetize with the snow, yet their nose is a problem, so they cover it with their hands, and that way they seem to be all white to confuse the seals. When not hunting, polar bears are resting or sleeping.

One important thing I should also mention is hibernation. This means to pass the winter in a dormant state. Polar bears don't hibernate, except for the pregnant female. They're not deep hibernators, but enter a state of carnivore lethargy.

I knew about polar bears when I was little, and when I had more spare time then, I'd watch docummentaries, or look at pictures wanting to "meet" them some day. I like them simply because I think they're very cute, and smart animals, and because their enviroment is very unique in comparison to the normal wildlife. I mean, it's probably difficult to handle all the cold and snow there, so their mechanisms to deal with that are interesting to me. Their fur helps them to keep them warm, but they also tend to overheat, so they move slowly, and release the heat through the sites where fur is absent or blood vessels are close to the skin such as nose, ears, footpads, etc.

Finally, and most important, I want to explain why these animals are important to me, and how I'd like to help them.

Polar bears are threatened (vulnerable) animals, and this is mostly humans' fault. A big amount of them are hunted, their environment is every day more threatened by the global warming, and there has been found chemical substances that can cause cancer on their skin as well.

What I'd like to do is start some sort of rescue to keep the species. I'm not a fan of zoos, because I think it tends to limit the possibility of animals to live in their original habitat, but at the same time I agree with them when their intention is to save endangered species. So, the idea is to give them the best environment they can get, and try to save some of them.

Several worldwide associations have been trying to conserve polar bears by protecting their ecosystem, especially the areas of shelter, food and migration. But it's still complicated to control this completely.

Even though, what I'd like to do to help them requires hard work, and it'll probably take a long time, and a lof of money to accomplish goals, I truly believe that, in order to make the world a better place, we need to realize the damage we're making, and consider the urgent need of saving what belongs to the planet.