Polar bears living closer to Arctic communities

2023 marks the 50th Anniversary of the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears. There are reasons to celebrate. Through coordinated management actions, the Agreement’s parties consisting of Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and the United States have worked to reduce the primary threat at the time of signing: large-scale commercial and recreational hunting. In 2013, the parties came together to renew their commitment to polar bear conservation, recognising the climate crisis as today’s primary threat to the long-term survival of polar bears.

The Arctic—which has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average over the past four decades—has long been viewed as “ground zero” of the climate crisis. Summer Arctic sea ice extent is shrinking by an average of 13% per decade. Sea ice forms in late autumn and then partially melts during the warmer summer months. But it is projected that within the next few decades, the Arctic will be completely ice-free in the summertime. Current research suggests healthy polar bear populations will be unable to survive long-term in areas where the sea ice disappears for much of the year, with a high probability that the global polar bear population will decline by one third by 2050.

A study published in Nature Climate Change goes even further to suggest that unless GHG emissions are reduced, by 2100 we may lose all but a few high Arctic subpopulations of polar bears. Polar bears rely on the presence of sea ice to enable them to capture their preferred prey, ringed seals. In some parts of the Arctic, polar bears spend more and more time waiting for the ice to return after the summer. They have less time to hunt, which forces them to go without food for longer. Female bears struggle to feed their young if they go more than 117 days without food.  As a result, in Western Hudson Bay, Canada, births have declined, three cub litters aren’t as common as they once were, and the number of bears in this subpopulation is declining. Using this fasting limit, this study estimates that 12 of the 13 polar bear subpopulations may collapse by 2100 if warming continues at current rates.

Read more: why the climate crisis is making it hard for polar bears to get more calories.

Increasing sea ice melt means more polar bears are coming onshore and staying longer, making interactions between the bears and people more likely. While polar bears are well-adapted to surviving off their stores of body fat between successful hunts, they can only do so for so long without impacts to their health. As the amount of time fasting onshore increases, polar bears lose their fat stores, and body condition, making some bears apparently more likely to take risks. Research has shown that in 61 per cent of documented polar bear attacks on people, the bear was in below-average body condition.

More polar bears closer to communities will make everyday life in communities more stressful. It will cause safety concerns for people doing outside activities and children walking to school and playing outside. It also creates danger and increased burdens for communities that must respond by maintaining vigilant patrols and search and rescue capacity.

Multiple solutions for managing interactions between polar bears and people

Interactions between people and polar bears will continue to increase and there isn’t just one solution to this serious problem.

Food storage and waste management

As polar bears spend more time on land, they are more likely to be seen in community rubbish dumps. We work with communities to improve waste management, safely store food, for example in custom-built polar bear-resistant steel containers, and to remove animal carcasses from the proximity of villages.

Polar bear patrols

These are led by local people who deter polar bears from villages and safeguard communities. The purpose is to drive away problem animals with loud noises such as engines, horns, or even cracker shots and flare or signal guns fired into the air. Today, we support patrols across the Arctic, in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia. Read about the polar bear patrollers in Whale Cove, Nunavut.

Sharing knowledge across the Arctic

We organize workshops and exchange visits between Arctic communities facing polar bear conflict. For example, members of the Russian polar bear patrols traveled to Alaska with WWF’s support in 2012 to share lessons learned with their Alaskan counterparts.

Understanding conflict

We promote the Polar Bear Human Interaction Management System (PBHIMS), a database that will inform management decisions to reduce dangerous encounters conflicts between people and polar bears. This system captures data on bear sightings, polar bear natural history and management, and events where bears are deterred from communities.

Read more: A youth view on interactions between polar bears and people.

The only long-term solution

In the Arctic, sea ice retreat is causing more polar bears to spend prolonged periods of time on land and in closer proximity to communities; an issue predicted to increase in more parts of the Arctic in the coming years. This threatens the safety and wellbeing of people living in the Arctic. If unmanaged, it could also affect polar bear populations. As a matter of urgency, communities must be supported by governments with the conditions they need to manage this problem.

However, to preserve ice-dependent species including polar bears, we must slow the rate of irreversible change in the Arctic’s climate. By reversing  the decline of ice habitat, we can ensure Arctic species are not pushed to close to extinction. But time is running out. It is critical that we close the gap between talk and action by putting a stop to global warming, and not just halting, but reversing, nature loss by 2030. Every tenth of a degree of global warming that we can avert matters. Governments need to immediately adopt stronger targets and put policies in place to meet them. There is no second chance.