An official Canadian government survey found that polar bears are disappearing at a rapid rate from the Churchill region, the town in the Arctic known as the “Polar Bear Capital of the World”, as a result of the weakening of the ice in the face of climate change.
Every five years, government scientists conduct an aerial survey of the number of polar bears in the western part of Hudson Bay, which is in Canada’s Arctic region. The new report, which is based on collection data from the end of August to the beginning of September 2021, showed that the population reached 618 bears, compared to 842 bears in the 2016 survey.
The survey also found a “significant decrease in the number of adult females and young bears between 2011 and 2021”, and that overall the bear population in the area has decreased by nearly 50% since the 1980s. “The declines recorded are consistent with long-standing estimates of the demographic impact of climate change on polar bears,” the study said.
Due to global warming, the sea ice layer has become thinner and it breaks up earlier in the spring and becomes frozen later in the fall, and because of this there is a survival challenge for the bears who need the ice to search for seals, for movement and reproduction. The researchers estimate that the bears may have left the Churchill area to neighboring areas for hunting and living.
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At the same time, Stephen Atkinson, a biologist who has studied polar bears for 30 years and led the government research, was mainly alerted by the disappearance of the females and the young bears. “The bears’ ability to reproduce will disappear, because there will simply be fewer young bears that will survive and become adults,” he said.