Polar bears depend on the sea ice to hunt, staking out over seal breathing holes. But the Arctic is now warming about four times faster than the rest of the world. Around Hudson Bay, seasonal sea ice is melting out earlier in the spring, and forming later in the fall, forcing bears to go for longer without food.
And while it’s possible some bears may have moved, “the number of adult male bears has remained more or less the same. What’s driven the decline is a reduced number of juvenile bears and adult females,” said Stephen Atkinson, an independent wildlife biologist who led the research on behalf of the government.
“There was a very low number of cubs being produced in 2021,” said Andrew Derocher, who leads the Polar Bear Science Lab at the University of Alberta. “We’re looking at a slowly aging population and when you do get bad years, older bears are much more vulnerable to increased mortality.”