Polar bears are facing an accelerating welfare and survival crisis as Arctic sea ice loss reduces hunting opportunities, increases starvation, and forces dangerous encounters with humans.
A polar bear that cannot hunt seals through adequate sea ice is a bear experiencing slow starvation. The physiological process of prolonged fasting beyond normal seasonal duration causes muscle breakdown, immune suppression, and ultimately organ failure. Pregnant females who cannot accumulate sufficient fat reserves before denning either fail to produce cubs or produce cubs too weak to survive. Cubs that do survive face a landscape of diminishing opportunity as their ice-dependent prey species also shifts. The welfare suffering of climate-stressed polar bears is both acute in starvation events and chronic in the ongoing degradation of the conditions that make their lives viable. Unlike most wildlife welfare problems, this one has a global cause requiring a global response.