Map the Thaw, Save the Bears

©WCS/D.Moore

The ice is melting. Across the Arctic polar cap, sea ice is receding as global temperatures rise, and so the amount of open water grows. Though polar bears—Earth’s largest land predators— historically knew no boundaries, today their habitat is increasingly fragmented by watery roadblocks. No longer able to pad the ice from Russia to Alaska and Canada to Greenland, the bears find themselves stuck on shore for longer periods of the year. And with their principal prey, ringed and bearded seals, out of reach, they face starvation, and sometimes drowning.

In the wake of the U.S. government’s watershed decision to propose listing polar bears as “Threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has launched a bold initiative called “Warm Waters for Cool Bears.” In this new project, WCS landscape ecologists and polar bear researchers from the United States Geological Service will combine current and historical satellite imagery with meteorological data to create a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) map of the changes in sea ice habitat over time. The map will help scientists distinguish short-term, seasonal effects and large-scale climate phenomena from the long-term global warming trends that threaten wildlife. Conservationists will then be able to predict where the ice is likely to remain solid in the near future, and therefore which of the world’s 18 remaining populations of polar bears stand the best chance of survival.

“This is the first distribution-wide study on the ecological needs of polar bears in the context of global warming,” said Dr. Gary Tabor, director of the WCS North America Program. “It will inform important management activities such as designating protected areas for polar bears and their prey.”

Warm Waters for Cool Bears, led by WCS landscape ecologist Scott Bergen, is a departure from previous polar bear studies because it focuses on habitat, rather than individual bears. Tracking bears with satellite collars has often come at great cost and risk to the animals and researchers alike. The new project will be funded by a $100,000 grant from the Wendy P. McCaw Foundation.

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