Only three females with collars are still being tracked by USGS researchers in the Beaufort Sea and all of them spent August 2016 on the sea ice in the eastern portion, off the coast of Banks Island.
Meanwhile, as Arctic sea ice nears the annual low, NSIDC predicts that 2016 will likely not set a new record but may bottom-out below 2007 (the second-lowest since 1979). The impact of low September sea ice on polar bear health and survival, based on recent research reports, will be the topic of an upcoming post.
Original caption: “Movements of 3 satellite-tagged polar bears for the month of August, 2016. Polar bears were tagged in 2016 on the spring-time sea ice of the southern Beaufort Sea. All 3 of these bears have satellite collar transmitters. Polar bear satellite telemetry data are shown with AMSR2 remotely-sensed ice coverage from 31 August, 2016.” See larger image here.
The three females shown are the only bears left out of the original 5 tagged in April 2016.
Compare this year to August 2012, when there were many more bears being tracked:
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