Polar bears depend entirely on sea ice to hunt ringed seals. As Arctic ice melts due to climate change, bears face prolonged fasting, starvation, and welfare harms unprecedented in the species' history.
Polar bear welfare harms from climate change are direct and severe. Extended fasting periods cause measurable body condition decline — bears in poor condition in autumn enter hibernation with insufficient fat reserves, leading to failed pregnancies and cub mortality. Starving bears show behavioral indicators of distress: increased foraging desperation, scavenging in dump sites, and human conflict that results in their lethal removal. Mother-cub bonds are disrupted when nutritional stress causes females to abandon cubs they cannot sustain. These are welfare harms inflicted at population scale by greenhouse gas emissions — a diffuse but real causal chain from human activity to animal suffering. Climate action is, unambiguously, animal welfare action.