Climate change is transforming polar ecosystems at unprecedented speed. The welfare impacts on polar wildlife range from habitat loss to increased disease and human-wildlife conflict.
Polar wildlife welfare is uniquely linked to climate change outcomes. These are animals whose entire physiology, behaviour, and life history is calibrated to specific environmental conditions that are being rapidly altered. The welfare impacts — starvation, reproductive failure, increased predation exposure, novel disease — are cumulative and cascading. Individual animal welfare cannot be addressed without addressing the systemic driver. The most impactful welfare action for polar species is therefore climate advocacy and emission reduction — an unusual but accurate conclusion for welfare-motivated individuals. Local interventions including predator conflict management and emergency feeding of starving polar bears are stopgaps that do not address the underlying cause.