Climate Change
In Search of Polar Bear Cubs
An Expedition to the Canadian Arctic Wilderness
March 2011. The vehicle I am in, a beaten up van outfitted with tank tracks, slowly lurches down a steep hill. I am jostled back and forth as we inch our way across the tundra of northern Canada, 40 miles from the tiny town of Churchill. After a two hour-long drive into the wilderness we rock to a stop, finally reaching our destination. Less than 100 meters away, in a tangle of small willows, a polar bear mother rests as her frisky, solitary 10-week old cub tugs on her neck and bats at barren twigs. I’m immediately struck by how this powerful beast can be so caring and gentle, tolerating the cub’s incessant yanking.
Battling biting cold winds and wrapped in a massive Canadian Goose parka, I get out and stand alongside my colleague Peter Ewins, WWF Arctic wildlife biologist. Joining us is a two-person crew with ABC News, heavily laden with film equipment. WWF often sends scientists to the Arctic from July to November to work on field research projects and collaborate with indigenous communities. This time, we’ve trekked to this remote corner of the world for an equally important aspect of our work: explaining to a television audience the perilous situation faced by the polar bears and their cubs in the Arctic.
Number One Threat to Polar Bears
The number one threat to polar bears is well-known: climate change. The Arctic is especially hard hit, with winter temperatures in northeastern Canada now more than 18 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, and continuing to climb. The same situation faces polar bears in Alaska, where WWF is working to build support for sustainable management of bear habitat. The polar bear diet consists almost entirely of seals that they sneak up on and catch on the sea ice. It’s the way of life these bears have known for millennia, but now something has changed. Higher temperatures mean that sea ice is forming later and melting sooner than ever before, forcing polar bears ashore before they can build up sufficient body weight to stay healthy until returning to the sea ice months later.
Peter explains to me that this is especially true for pregnant mothers that den (without a bite to eat) for eight months out of the year before trudging through deep snow to the frozen Hudson Bay in late February or March. Scientists have found that polar bear litter sizes are steadily declining because their mothers are too malnourished to bring cubs to term or nurse them as infants. Historically, triplets and twins would commonly emerge from maternity dens, but now twins and singletons (like this one before me) are the norm. If carbon pollution rates continue as predicted, the world’s 20,000 remaining polar bears will be in serious jeopardy.
Photo Gallery
After minutes of prodding, the cub finally stirs his slumbering mother. She raises her head and looks around for a moment, then turns to her cub and daintily pushes it away from her face using a paw as big as a Frisbee. I press the shutter button on my Canon digital SLR absently as I stand entranced by the mother’s sheer size, magnificence and affection toward her infant. With the wind chill, the air temperature is negative 40 degrees (when it’s this low it doesn’t really matter if we’re talking Fahrenheit or Celsius anymore!), but at that moment the tingling in my fingers is from pure adrenaline.
That evening, I stare up at green swirling lights of the aurora borealis and contemplate the trajectory polar bears are headed on. Researchers say that, by 2035 (when that cub will be an adult), the lack of sea ice near Churchill will make life here impossible for the polar bear to survive. WWF scientists and staff are working tirelessly to avoid that fate (learn more about WWF's work), but I admit it is an uphill battle. The problems in the Arctic cannot be solved here in these Northern lands of the Cree and Inuit which are already facing the heat. The solutions lie in reducing our addiction to dirty fossil fuels, using our energy more efficiently, and powering our economies with clean, renewable energy. The solution to saving the polar bear is within our grasp. But, I ponder, will we seize it?
Written by Rhys Gerholdt, a Media Manager with World Wildlife Fund. Rhys focuses on communicating the organization’s work to save endangered species and habitats from the on-the-ground consequences of climate change.
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