Polar bear cubs depend on their mothers for 2-3 years of intensive care, with climate-driven changes in sea ice affecting maternal body condition and the welfare of cubs during the most vulnerable period of their lives.
Polar bear cubs born to mothers in poor body condition face compromised early welfare — insufficient milk production, cold stress from inadequate maternal fat, and reduced tolerance for the energetic demands of the Arctic environment. Mothers that cannot meet their own and their cubs' energetic needs face the physiological conflict between self-preservation and offspring care. Orphaned polar bear cubs have essentially no survival prospects in the wild — they cannot hunt seals independently at 2-3 years old and have no other social support. Climate change that reduces the length of sea ice season and the quality of summer foraging directly affects cub welfare by reducing maternal body condition at the most critical period. Den disturbance that causes abandonment eliminates the protection that months of denning was supposed to provide.