Featured Image Credit: Arturo de Frias Marques via Wikipedia
By Emily Persico
In two separate studies done on high arctic polar bears, scientists have found that polar bear populations are faring through climate change much better than expected.
These seal-crunching, cold-loving bears are finding it harder than ever to set up camp on a piece of ice. Their part-time habitat is slowly melting away with rising temperatures, and scientists everywhere worry about their future in a changing world.
That is why scientists using population models predicted that there would be 1,600 polar bears in Baffin Bay today. However, quite to their surprise, the actual count is 2,826—over 1,00 more than predicted!
This severe underprediction is, in part, a result in differing survey methods between the current day and the last survey, which was taken in 1997. Whether or not there was actually an increase in polar bears is difficult to say and, unfortunately, would not even represent the full story for polar bears in Baffin Bay.
“Body condition in the Baffin Bay polar bears declined in close association with the duration of the ice-free period,” furthers the report. This means that, although polar bears might be increasing, their health is indeed suffering.
Mother bears in this study are struggling, too. They are spending about a month less in their maternity den and finding it harder and harder to raise healthy cubs whom, unfortunately, are dying at unprecedented rates.
Luckily, the second report holds much brighter news for Kane Basin polar bears, whose numbers have actually increased from 357 to 224 with no associated health deterioration.
“[There’s] relatively strong evidence for stable to increasing population,” the second report reads.
While Kane Basin may hold better news for polar bears, it likely will not be long until it catches up with Baffin Bay. Kane Basin is melting, and the bears are just going to have to make due.
Read more about the studies here.