"Polar bears are the poster children of climate changeand for good reason. These giant bears hunt, mate and spend their days hanging out on Arctic sea ice, which is rapidly disappearing as the climate warms. But some polar bears, it seems, are far more resilient than we realized: new research suggests that in one region, the bears are adapting to the declining sea ice."
"Researchers took more than 1,000 body measurements from 770 polar bears over 24 years around Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Barents Seaan area that has seen an especially acute decline in sea ice over the decades. By 2019, the region's annual sea ice season shriveled to more than two months shorter than what it was 24 years prior. Yet the bears showed no decline in their body condition between 2000 and 2019even as sea ice in their area disappeared."
"They hypothesized that the Svalbard polar bears' health would wane over the study period. Tracking each bear over the ice with helicopters and periodically darting them to take body measurements on the ground, the researchers were able to estimate the animals' overall physical healtha metric called body condition index, or BCI. Researchers record the mouth measurements of an anesthetized polar bear. Recapture of bears marked in previous years is important for obtaining accurate data on survival and reproduction."
More than 1,000 body measurements were taken from 770 polar bears around Svalbard over 24 years. The Svalbard region's annual sea-ice season shrank by more than two months by 2019 compared with 24 years earlier. Body condition index (BCI) estimates showed no decline between 2000 and 2019 despite disappearing sea ice. Each bear was tracked over the ice with helicopters and periodically darted to obtain measurements on the ground. Recapture of previously marked bears supported accurate survival and reproduction data. Polar bears in the region were in fairly good condition and recovered from a BCI drop from the 1990s to 2000.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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