4 hours ago
1 ARTICLE AD
Polar bears may not be the vicious killers you imagine, but it’s still wise not to get too close. Now you don’t have to, as a team of biologists has captured rare footage of cubs taking their first steps outside the dens in which they were born.
Typically, polar bear denning is studied via satellite telemetry, but while useful, it’s not great for learning about the subtleties of the behavior. The photos are the culmination of almost 10 years of work, in which the biologists still tracked the bears via collars and satellites but innovated by installing cameras in a remote part of Norway. The result is a rare firsthand glimpse of furry bear babies taking their first steps into the wider world.
Polar bears are classified as a vulnerable species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List. There are roughly 26,000 of the bears left in the wild, a number that could decline by up to 30% by 2050. The danger is largely human-made, with Polar Bear International listing climate change, commercial activity, and pollution as major contributors. If those factors don’t kill polar bears directly, they can still have an effect.
To learn more about the process, the biologists placed cameras outside 13 known polar bear den sites in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago at the intersection of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. They tracked the bears each year between 2016 and 2020, and again in 2023. While the cameras took still photos, and not video, they took a lot of them: between 4,700 and 37,000 per den site, which allowed the team to create fascinating time lapse footage.
Alongside the images, the team published an associated study on February 27 in the Journal of Wildlife Management (which also happens to be International Polar Bear Day).
As the researchers tracked the bears, they noticed some concerning data. The average date for bear families to emerge was March 9, a week or two earlier than had been reported previously. That could be bad news, as maternal denning allows for a proper gestational period and plenty of early growth. Young cubs, like human babies, are highly reliant on their moms, and proper denning is crucial to their early survival. Even for a predator that can grow to over 900 pounds (408 kilograms), early life is risky, and fewer than 50% of cubs make it to adulthood. After the bears are able to emerge from the dens in the spring, mom and her kids typically remain close for several weeks, as the cubs get used to the outside world and develop muscle and motor skills.
The biologists acknowledged this might just be a statistical fluke, but that it should be monitored to make sure.
Other details were less alarming and more fascinating. Some bear mommas appeared to be quite picky, and made their kids come with them as they moved from one den to another. The finickiness extended to when they decided to leave the den. There were instances where a bear would come outside, appear to think “Screw this, it’s too cold,” and head back in after less than a minute.
Louise Archer, Polar Bears International Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto Scarborough and co-author of the study, said in a statement that it’s her hope the research will raise awareness of the human-created threats the apex predators face.
“Polar bear mothers are having increasing difficulties reproducing due to climate-driven changes, and are likely to face further challenges with the expansion of the human footprint in the Arctic,” she said. “We’re excited to introduce new tools to monitor bears during this vulnerable time and to gain insight into their behavior across the Arctic, so that we can work to protect cubs and therefore the species. Every den we monitored had its own story, every data point adds to our understanding of this crucial time and supports more effective conservation strategies.”
Despite—or maybe because of—the fact that polar bears are found in territory many humans would find inhospitable, the species is one of the most iconic and beloved on the planet. Even though we rely on them to hawk our sugar water, precious little is being done to preserve their homes. Here’s hoping this footage of them being doting parents melts some hearts, and not more of their habitats.
