Polar Bear
Habitat, Distribution, and Status
Ursus maritimus Polar bear Mother and young Churchill, Canada
© Francois Pelletier/WWF-Canon
Polar bears are found throughout the circumpolar Arctic on pack ice, along or near coasts, and on islands.
They share this habitat with indigenous peoples, and animals such as ringed seals, arctic foxes, narwhal, beluga whales, and millions of migratory birds.
The polar bear needs sea ice to survive ...
Polar bears live on the annual arctic sea ice that provides a platform from which they can hunt, live, breed, and in some cases create maternal dens.
Sea ice is more than a simple platform: it is an entire ecosystem inhabited by plankton and micro-organisms, which support a rich food chain that nourishes seals that in turn become prey for polar bears.
It is the very foundation and defining characteristic of the arctic marine ecosystem.
... but as the Arctic warms, the sea ice declines
When the edge of the ice retreats to the north during summer, and it is retreating further and further each year, bears must follow the ice floes north to stay close to seals and other prey.
Otherwise, they become stranded and must spend their summers on land until the sea ice forms again in the fall, living off body fat stored from hunting in the spring and winter.
The greater extent of melting sea ice during the arctic summer is becoming an increasing problem for bears seeking places to hunt, breed and sometimes den.
Polar bears are left with less time to hunt for food. As their ice habitat shrinks bears in the southern limits of the Arctic - especially around Hudson Bay, Canada - face a grave threat to their survival.
At the current rate of climate warming, experts predict that there will be no ice in Hudson Bay by 2080.
Historic status
Several polar bear populations were decimated by unsustainable hunting by European, Russian and American hunters and trappers from the 1600s right through to the mid-1970's.
In 1973 commercial hunting was strictly regulated following the signing of an international agreement on polar bear conservation.
“Reviewing the latest information available the PBSG concluded that 1 of 19 subpopulations is currently increasing, 3 are stable and 8 are declining. For the remaining 7 subpopulations available data were insufficient to provide an assessment of current trend. The total number of polar bears is still thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000.”
Polar Bear Specialist Group. July 2009
Locations of polar bear populations around the Arctic as of July, 2009. Click on the image above to see a larger version of this map.
© WWF
Current bear populations
- 20-25,000 polar bears worldwide
- Aproximately 19 distinct sub-populations (see above map)
- 60% of these are in Canada
- Tracks have been reported as far north as the pole
- Few scientists believe few bears travel beyond 82° north latitude. This is because the northern Arctic Ocean has little food for them.
Today, polar bears are among the few large carnivores that are still found in roughly their original habitat and range, and in some places in roughly their natural numbers.
Although most populations have returned to healthy numbers, there are differences between the populations. Some are stable, some seem to be increasing, and some are decreasing due to various pressures. There are large uncertainties regarding some populations that are still harvested quite heavily and others for which information is lacking.
Conservation Status
In 1973, Canada, the United States, Denmark, Norway and the former USSR signed the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears and their Habitat.
In 2005, the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) reviewed the status of polar bears using the IUCN Red List categories and criteria.
The group concluded that the Red List classification of the polar bear should be upgraded from Least Concern to Vulnerable based on the likelihood of a decline in the total global polar bear population of more than 30% within the next 35 to 50 years.
The US Government has classified the Polar Bear under its Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The main cause of this projected decline in polar bear numbers is climatic warming and its consequent negative effects on the sea ice habitat of polar bears.
This agreement on the status of polar bears regulates hunting and habitat protection, but it does not protect bears against the biggest man-made threat to their survival: global warming.
If current warming trends continue unabated, scientists believe that polar bears will be vulnerable to extinction within the next century.
