EDMONTON -- It's unbearable: The selective hunting of male polar bears could eventually leave lovelorn females out in the cold, newly published data suggests.

A University of Alberta study of 2,500 polar bears from the central Arctic has found that the policy of killing only males could mean fewer pregnancies for females.

"We need to carefully monitor sex ratios because, if you lose too many males from the population, eventually females will be unable to find mates," the study's lead author, Peter Molnar, said Wednesday.

"That could lead to a decline in pregnancies and such a decline could happen very rapidly."

The study combined mathematics and biology to examine data from 1997, the latest numbers available for that population of bears.

In natural conditions, Molnar said there would be two to three males for every female