Polar bears in zoos increasingly serve as ambassadors for climate advocacy, as their wild counterparts face existential threat from Arctic sea ice loss.
Polar bear welfare operates at two scales: the welfare of individual captive animals and the existential welfare threat to wild populations from climate change. Captive polar bears face real welfare challenges — these are large, wide-ranging predators in enclosures that cannot approximate Arctic conditions. Their conservation value lies increasingly in climate advocacy rather than species survival plans, as captive genetic diversity is insufficient to substitute for wild population loss. The welfare framework for polar bears requires zoos to be honest advocates for climate action rather than simply maintaining a charismatic species for visitor engagement while the wild habitat disappears.