The complex welfare challenges facing polar bears — in the wild as climate change reduces sea ice, and in captivity where meeting their extraordinary space and behavioral needs is extremely difficult.
Polar bear welfare sits at the intersection of two difficult problems: wild bears facing the existential threat of climate change with increasingly compromised welfare as sea ice declines, and captive bears in zoo settings where their enormous ranging needs and complex hunting behavior cannot be met in any realistic enclosure. The welfare case for limiting polar bear captivity to facilities that can genuinely improve on minimum standards — with large, enriched environments and genuine conservation program value — is strong. The primary intervention for wild polar bear welfare is climate action — protecting sea ice that supports the ecological system polar bears depend on. Individual animal interventions for wild bears are limited by the scale of the problem.