Tag Archives: hunting

Polar bear habitat update – sea ice for hunting plentiful in all subpopulation regions

Preferred polar bear habitat is said to be 50% concentration or higher over continental shelves, which describes all but the fringes of sea ice extent today, including Hudson Bay, the Southern Beaufort, and the Barents Sea.

Preferred polar bear habitat 50pc concentration_May 8 2015_PolarBearScience

However, polar bears – excellent swimmers that they are – are quite capable of utilizing areas with 15-50% sea ice concentration if necessary (Durner et al. 2004; Rode et al. 2014:79), especially when prey are plentiful.  This would account for the fact that there are still sightings of polar bears in and around northern Newfoundland (see previous post here and photo below1), where ice concentration is in the 30-50% range.

Photo with this news story (7 May 2015): "(Update) Polar bear sighting in Croque"

Photo with this news story (7 May 2015): “(Update) Polar bear sighting in Croque”

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Polar bears out on the sea ice eat few seals in summer and early fall

We hear endlessly about the polar bears ‘forced’ to go without food for months because of receding summer sea ice — what about all the bears that stay out on the ice over the summer? Presumably, those bears keep hunting for seals – but how many do they actually catch?

Polar Bear Breaks Ice

[Update 9 February 2015: Just to be clear, this post is based on the facts available in the peer reviewed literature — if you think I have missed something, let me know via the “Contact us” page above]
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Russia the first to ban polar bear hunting in 1956, not a surprise why

Soviet soldier in a tank, feeding condensed milk to polar bears c. 1950 (i.imgur.com), via Redditt 16 November 2014.

Soviet soldier in a tank, feeding condensed milk to polar bears c. 1950 - Imgur

Sponsored by the Russian Dash Cams Association. Reminding you to drive your tank safely and avoid hitting polar bears.”

Apparently, polar bears are attracted to tanks as they are to ships and submarines, which made them easy targets for men with guns. This, along with the rather extensive use of so-called ‘set guns’ (a baited apparatus fixed with a loaded shotgun), led to a significant decline of polar bears in the U.S.S.R. and the Barents Sea area by the 1950s. See also, “The slaughter of polar bears that rarely gets mentioned (ca. 1890-1930)

This was the real threat to polar bears and it was successfully halted by international agreement in 1973. We should not forget that polar bears are a conservation success story.

Belugas as food for hungry polar bears

Here’s a refreshing change from the litany of cries to “save the killer whales” we heard last month when a few killer whales got temporarily trapped in the ice of Hudson Bay, which I commented about at the time. A story with an entirely different tone emerged last week, with updates today, about beluga whales trapped in the ice on Hudson Bay (see maps and photos below) that came without emotional pleading. It’s a story of life in the Arctic. Continue reading