WATCH: Heart-Wrenching Footage Of Starving Polar Bear Exposes Climate Crisis

Video footage captured in Canada’s Arctic region showing a starving wild polar bear roaming around dry land looking for food has offered a devastating glimpse of the impact climate change is having on polar bears in the region. The video has gone viral since it was posted on social media by photographer Paul Nicklen.

The scene was recorded by the conservation group named "Sea Legacy" during a late summer expedition in Baffin Island, Canada. "My entire Sea Legacy team was pushing through their tears and emotions while documenting this dying polar bear," photographer Paul Nicklen wrote on social media after he published the footage this week.

The video posted on Instagram by the photographer garnered more than 1 million views and over 15,000 comments at the time of publishing this story.

The heart-wrenching footage showed the bear struggling to walk as it searched for food on dry land. The bear eventually comes across a trashcan used by Inuit fishermen, only to rummage through it with little luck. It then slumps to the ground.

The bear was not too old but it was frail and probably died within hours of being captured on the video, Nicklen said. "This is what starvation looks like. The muscles atrophy. No energy. It’s a slow, painful death."

The makers of the video drew a direct line between the polar bear’s state on the island and the rising climate crisis.

"As temperatures rise and sea ice melts, polar bears lose access to the main staple of their diets – seals," the video noted. "Starving, and running out of energy, they are forced to wander into human settlements for any source of food," it added.

Nicklen told National Geographic that he wants the footage of the dying polar bear to communicate the consequences of climate change to the audience. "When scientists say bears are going extinct, I want people to realize what it looks like. Bears are going to starve to death," Nicklen said. "This is what a starving bear looks like."

He also mentioned he was unable to help the starving bear as it is illegal in Canada to feed the animals in any given situation. He said he however wanted to capture the horror of the once-majestic animal's demise in order to showcase the dramatic impact of climate change. Nicklen said he hoped that the images would help affect human behavior so that the bear in the video will not have died in vain.