Climate Change in Habitat Loss of

Polar Bears (Canada)

Aditi Bardhan
Post Graduate 2nd semester
Geography Department
Presidency University
5th March, 2019

ABSTRACT
Climate Change is one of the burning issues of Global importance at present. Its impacts are far reaching
and one of them is the habitat loss of the Polar Bears who, though are still not in existential crisis, are
predicted to be so in new future, possibly by the end of 21st century. Climate change causes heavy rain
during their breeding period which causes collapse of maternity dens. Also they can’t reach the shore as
their transporting platforms i.e; the sea ice packs melt. Moreover, they feed on ring seals which they
hunt from the layers of the sea ice. Overall, shrinking of sea ice cover is a major threat on the entire
species population who now have to struggle for their existence. Canada being the hotspot of polar bear
population, shows the acute trends and condition of this furry vulnerable species.

INTRODUCTION
Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) are the inhabitants of the Arctic Circle who are not only the
largest species of Bears but also the biggest carnivores among the land animals, but are now
threatened to their existence and have been declared as “Vulnerable” internationally by IUCN
in their Red List Category in 2015. Polar Bears’ Primary Habitat is sea ice on which they depend
for hunting seals, resting, seeking mates, breeding and also for maternity dens. Their feeding
period is also dependent on this sea ice which is between freeze up to breakup period of sea
ice in Arctic Circle, during which they hunt and feed and store the fat in their body to keep on
their metabolism during the ice free period. Hence, sooner the freeze up and later the break
up occurrences take place, its more favorable for the Polar Bears to survive and stay healthy.
But the recent trend of Climate Change owing to Global Warming has impacted even on the far
away frozen poles. The polar ice is breaking down and the surrounding circumpolar regions are
having greater period ice free seas than the frozen ones. This is having an acute impact of the
polar flora and fauna of which Polar Bears are also not exceptions. Loss of sea ice has caused
habitat loss for the Polar Bears leading them to be regarded as the threatened species of the
21st century. Subpopulations of Polar Bears are found in 19 circumpolar regions of Arctic Circle
–
 Baffin Bay (BB)
 Barents Sea (BS)
 Chukchi Sea (CS)
 Davis Strait (DS)
 East Greenland (EG)
 Foxe Basin (FB)
 Gulf of Boothia (GB)
 Kane Basin (KB)
 Kara Sea (KS)
 Lancaster Sound (LS)
 Laptev Sea (LP)
 M’Clintock Channel (MC)
 Northern Beaufort Sea (NB)
 Norwegian Bay (NW) Distribution of Subpopulations of Polar Bears around Arctic Belt (AB)
SOURCE: Regher et al., (2016)
 Southern Beaufort Sea (SB)
NOTE: Sea ice in summer recedes pole wards and hence away from
 Southern Hudson Bay (SH) the circumpolar coasts in Divergent Ice Ecoregion, whereas in case of
 Viscount Melville Sound (VM) Archipelago & Convergent, sea ice generally stays still in summer.
 Western Hudson Bay (WH)
Study Area: There are around 20,000 – 25,000 polar bears world wide of which 64 to 80% are
found in Canada[2]. The ecoregions in Canada are mostly seasonal or archipelago. But
presently, because of global warming and climate change, the multilayered sea ice are
becoming annual layered sea ice and even ice free in some areas during summer. This is a major
cause of concern. Polar Bears are facing habitat loss there; as a result they are migrating
onshore and getting into the living space of human beings, like in towns like Churchill, which is
dangerous for both human beings and the polar bears. In Canada, the areas where polar bears
can be found are Labrador, Hudson Bay, James Bay, Manitoba, Newfoundland, Northwest
Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, etc. Also polar bears are one of the major
attractions of the local tourism. Polar Bears being threatened, also impacts the Tourism
Industry. This is not the scenario of only Canada, other countries having polar bear are also
facing the brunt of climate change. Hence in November 15, 1973 a treaty was signed between
5 Nations – Canada, the U.S.A, Denmark (for Greenland), Norway (for Svalbard) and Russia –
those who contribute large shares in polar bear population. This treaty is known as the
Agreement on Conservation of Polar Bears where each of the member states agreed on certain
standard norms to protect the polar bear population. But it is hardly enough to get rid of the
larger impacts of a global phenomenon like Global Warming which needs assistance from every
single individual as anthrogenic influence on global warming has taken the most significant role
than the natural ones.

RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Arctic sea ice has an all bounded location where the land barriers prevent the sea ice to float
freely and reach the lower latitudes from the poles and melt, hence making sea ice
accumulation very prominent here. The Arctic Oscillation (AO) plays an important role in
influencing sea ice condition of Arctic Basin and its circumpolar areas. During positive AO,
strong wind accumulate over the pole and hence help in extended formation of sea ice. But
recently, the relation between AO and sea ice extent is not that significant as before; as
presently the factor of warming is overriding the impact of AO. Also reports say that the Arctic
is warming up at a faster rate than the global average[4].
Research Problem: Hence, Climate Change, following Global Warming, is being addressed as
the major influencing factor of Sea ice cover. Now, this sea ice, providing the platform of basic
means for existence to the polar bear population, has been their primary habitat and the
irregular freeze up and early breakup of the sea ice is putting a big question mark on the future
existence of an entire species clan owing to Habitat Loss, already identifying them as
vulnerable.
Literature Review: There are numerous literatures that studied the several aspects focusing on
climate change, its impacts on arctic basin and it flora and fauna and also special papers are
there on polar bear behavior and their life pattern. Ian Stirling and Andrew E. Derocher in their
paper[11] have discussed that the impact of this climate change is most adversely experienced
in the southern part of the polar bear extent. Places like Hudson Bay has acute impression of
this negative impact. They suggested that this unidirectional change in sea ice habitat coverage
and its distribution in long run will negatively correlate with the polar bear population. Also
here the ecological importance of sea ice in a polar bear life cycle has been established which
shows that the former directly controls reduced access to seals which often causes them
underweight problem and even starvation during maternity period. Climate change also brings
winter rain resulting into maternity den collapse – all these impacting their population trend in
the long run. The paper also claims that polar bears are true indicators of climatic warming as
they are the top predators of the marine arctic food chain. Stephen G. Hamilton et al.,
(2014)[12] in his study has also given special emphasis on physical alteration of marine
ecosystem due to climate change that will bring about biological imbalance in the same.
Hamilton’s study area was in Canadian archipelago, where he deduced a projection study from
2006-2100. It validates the findings made by several scholars that there has been a shift from
multi-layer sea ice pack to annual layers and the lengthening of ice free period which by the
end of 21st century will be critical for the polar bear archipelago subpopulations. The study’s
projection establishes a prediction of starvation and increased maternity failure by the
concerned species by 2100. Study made by Josefino C. Comiso[13] has done a quantitative
study relying on satellite data on arctic sea ice from 1981 to 2010 and has verified the fact that
there has been drastic decline in arctic perennial ice about 38% in 2007 and in the following
three years though there has been an improvement, but still the trend shows negative relation.
Derocher and Stirling in another paper named “Polar Bears in a Warming Climate”[14] has
given special emphasis on pollution impact brought about in arctic environment claiming that
there will be an alteration in concentration and pathway of pollutants allowing them to enter
artic basin through air of ocean current transport. They have also done a health assessment on
polar bears showing their short (<10), medium(10-20) and long(>20) period health conditions,
induced by climate change and the prediction of their future health behavior that shows decline
and reduced variability in their trend that is suspected to lead this species to extinction. All this
paper reviews have validated the claims to vulnerability of polar bears to climate change and
habitat loss inspite of current data showing a stable population of the species.
Research Objective: In this study, my objective is to find out the vitality of Global Warming, as
a reason of Polar Bears’ habitat loss, over the other influencing factors. For this, it is important
to explore what are the other factors that cause habitat loss of polar bears and how warming
effect overrides them in terms of significance. This study is specific to the polar bear bearing
regions of Canada where habitat loss of this species has created several problems.

The causal factors of polar bears’ habitat loss:

a) Toxic Pollution – Being the top predators of the arctic food chain, they are exposed to several
toxic pollutants released in Oceans and taken up through successive consumer levels.
b) Oil Exploration – There has been a recent focus of economic importance on oil drilling in
arctic region which will make polar bears even more vulnerable to oil spills or leaks.
c) Overhunting – The Inuit communities have permission to hunt polar bears following
Government regulated quotas. But sometimes illegal hunting occurs that result to
overhunting affecting the particular species population.
d) Commercial & Industrial Activities – Human intrusion into wildlife space is always hazardous.
e) Tourism & Recreation Activities – Overcrowding of tourists in their living space, in other
words, environmentally, exploits them making their wild space polluted.
f) Residential Extension – The exposure of water and land from beneath thick ice coverage due
to melting is attracting human habitation and its extension to the remote areas once safe
from human intervenes. Also construction of transport and communication lines are
hazardous to wild life.
g) Climate Change – The BIG problem.
Sea ice loss pertaining to polar bear habitat loss is a cumulative product of all these above
factors. But all of them other than Climate Change are local factors and hence can be mitigated
by local mitigation plans or utmost by national policies. But Climate Change being a global
phenomenon, it is not that easy to bring up mitigation plans and execute them efficiently. Also
Climate change is opening up frozen areas for human habitation, as a result, human intrusion
in wildlife space is also producing negative results. There are several global mitigation plans to
resist climate change like Kyoto Protocol, Emission Tax, Afforestation, etc. but the success rate
of their proper implementation is very low. Specially, in developing countries, where to support
huge population pressure rapid industrialization is taking place, huge quantity of carbon
elements and other greenhouse gases are added up to the atmosphere which reaches the
higher atmosphere and spread and affect the entire global sphere. And its impacts are most
prominent in Arctic areas. A study in Melbourne University under Dr. James Screen[8] reveals
that over the last two decades, warming effect in Arctic has intensified also producing a positive
albedo feedback system. Shiny sea ice platforms reflect back insolation, providing a shield to
the sea water from rising its temperature. Intense heating when make the bounded arctic sea
water ice free, immediately it starts a feedback mechanism where the ice free water traps even
more heat, making the system more efficient in entrapping heat. This decline in arctic sea ice
has directly impacted the polar bear population.

SOURCE: National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Research Question: Since Arctic habitat loss is not just a simple outcome of climate change,
rather a complex product of simultaneous influence of all the causal factors of which other than
the last one all are global, there can be a scope to at least slow down the melting process by
local mitigation plan against these local factors and also provide advantageous environmental
conditions to the polar bears so that they don’t starve to death because of melting sea ice as
reviews suggest. Reviews show that locally it has been possible to find an increase in polar bear
subpopulations, hence a local or regional than a global conservation procedure can be effective
to maintain the global population of the polar bears. Also educating and acknowledging people
at a regional level is much easier than doing the same globally. Also people are expected to
cooperate since saving polar bears can save the local tourism industries, its associated people
from getting unemployed, the dependent Inuit communities and also the Canadian citizens
who often face attacks from the intruded homeless hungry polar bears. Also being the top
predator of the arctic food cycle, polar bears’ extinction can lead to a complete collapse to the
entire arctic Marine-Terrestrial ecosystem.
Data & Methodology: In this study secondary data has been collected from official sites of
WWF, PBSG, IUCN, etc. Also primary data is collected from the field on the perception of the
people on habitat loss and intrusion of polar bears into human living spaces because of this
loss. Also reports are being collected on how this Climate change impacted the polar bear
population and what the future predictions show. On the basis of both the analytical and
descriptive perception data are used to comprehend the full scenario of how the factors
influencing polar bear habitat operate and also the relation between them. From this
understanding through a mixed methodology the research question has been addressed.
SOURCE: robertscribbler.com
REFERENCES
1. https://www.carbonbrief.org/polar-bears-and-climate-change-what-does-the-science-say
2. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/polar-bear
3. https://arcticwwf.org/species/polar-bear/threats/
4. https://arcticwwf.org/work/climate/
5. http://www.wwf.ca/conservation/arctic/wildlife/polar_bear/
6. https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22823/14871490
7. https://polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears/habitat/
8. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100428142324.htm
9. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/26/why-the-polar-bear-is-
still-a-pretty-good-icon-for-global-warming/?utm_term=.d3aeb8d29513
10. https://polarbearscience.com/2014/02/18/graphing-polar-bear-population-
estimates-over-time/
11. Stirling, Ian, and Andrew E. Derocher. "Possible impacts of climatic warming
on polar bears." Arctic (1993): 240-245.
12. Hamilton, Stephen G., et al. "Projected polar bear sea ice habitat in the
Canadian Arctic Archipelago." PLoS One 9.11 (2014): e113746.
13. Comiso, Josefino C. "Large decadal decline of the Arctic multiyear ice
cover." Journal of Climate 25.4 (2012): 1176-1193.
14. Derocher, Andrew E., Nicholas J. Lunn, and Ian Stirling. "Polar bears in a
warming climate." Integrative and comparative biology 44.2 (2004): 163-176.
15. https://robertscribbler.com/2015/09/03/arctic-sea-ice-prepping-for-new-record-
lows-in-2016-2017-jaxa-at-second-lowest-extent-on-record/