Polar bears are the iconic victims of climate change, facing declining sea ice that reduces hunting success, increases starvation, and drives conflict with human settlements across the Arctic.
Polar bear welfare is the most direct animal welfare consequence of climate change currently playing out at population scale. As sea ice retreats earlier each spring, bears are forced ashore before accumulating the fat reserves needed to survive the ice-free season. Chronic nutritional stress — measurable through body condition scoring and blubber thickness assessments — causes the physiological equivalent of starvation over months. This stress is most acute for pregnant females, who must sustain cubs through denning without access to prey. Increasing human-bear conflict, driven by food-seeking bears approaching communities, creates escalating lethality as land managers resort to more frequent shooting. The welfare intervention with the largest impact is climate action: emissions reduction is simultaneously the most important polar bear conservation and welfare policy available.