Polar Bear Cubs Face Survival Hurdles Due to Climate Change
Loss of sea ice means more time fasting on land for mother bears, reducing their milk supply and contributing to shrinking bear populations, researchers say.
A mother polar bear with her cubs.
Photographer: Andrey Smirnov/AFP/Getty ImagesPolar bears may be struggling to nourish their young as melting sea ice forces some populations to fast for longer periods, according to new research.
The bears — long held up as icons of the climate crisis — live only in the Arctic, around the North Pole and in northern parts of Canada, Alaska, Russia, Greenland and Norway. Their preferred habitat is the sea ice that covers Arctic waters for most of the year. When mother polar bears are forced onto land, as sometimes happens during the summer months, they struggle to access nourishing food and the quantity and quality of the milk they produce for their cubs declines, according to a paper that will be published Thursday in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.