Threats to Polar Bears and Other Arctic Wildlife

Jessica Handel, Rhetoric and Composition student & Green Team member

The polar bear population is endangered by various threats, including loss of sea ice habitat, polar bear-human conflicts, and other man-made impacts. It is vital to safeguard our wildlife in every way possible, and developing solutions to these issues can only benefit the environment. Polar bear population protection and survival needs to be a top priority, especially taking into consideration polar bears are now listed as a threatened species by the World Wildlife Fund. Steps that need to be taken in order to ensure polar bears are safeguarded include educating the people who come into contact with these animals, monitoring the populations and subpopulations of the bears, protecting what is left of the arctic habitat, and reducing the overall industrial footprint on the Earth and its wildlife.
Research is continuously proving the polar bear population is declining, due primarily to climate change. “Anthropogenic global warming,” the name designated to the long-term average increase in the temperature in the Earth’s atmosphere, poses a large threat to polar bears. Polar bears spend most of their time on the arctic ice, which is rapidly decreasing in size as global temperatures increase. Recent studies of subpopulations are showing stress on polar bear populations as a whole. Scientific research vividly proves climate change is a real issue that needs to be addressed in order to preserve the planet. While these studies present clear and concise evidence, a gap remains between the public opinion and facts. By selectively choosing regions of scientific research to attack, the arguments created to oppose climate change fit their own rationale. This creates a discrepancy in the overall public opinion of climate change. There is a well-established relationship between the arctic ice and the wellbeing of polar bears as a species. Scientists actively researching and publishing their findings cumulatively agree climate change can be linked to human activities. Credible sources have even estimated the entire Arctic might be ice-free during the summer months within decades. An ice-free environment would be detrimental to the polar bear population. This evidence confirms that polar bears will ultimately be negatively affected by climate change.
Ultimate change does not happen overnight, nor is it effortless. Climate change has become such an astronomically global issue that solutions formulated at this point in time can only slow the inevitable. Simple self-awareness from Earth’s inhabitants regarding things such as the use of fossil fuels, the volume of product consumption, and the use of energy harnessing electronics has the potential to create a substantial impact on climate change. Less considered solutions also have the capability to spark a positive change. Building infrastructures, for example, is not a topic typically discussed when searching for a problem’s solution. However, upgrading insulation and other building components such as cement would drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and make heavily-populated areas more energy efficient overall. Geoengineers have been preparing and debating for years on various experiments that would save the planet if climate change becomes a problem where the future of the Earth had no other options. Geoengineered “radical inventions” are viewed as the utmost of last resorts, those involved knowing these could lead to more dilemmas than solutions. Extreme ideas, reported by Nikhil Swaminathan, include releasing sulfate molecules into the atmosphere, using miniature mirrors in space to deflect sunlight, or fertilizing the oceans with various nutrients. In theory, a discharge of sulfate particles into the air would imitate a volcanic eruption and have the same cooling effect on the surface of the earth. Introducing nutrients such as iron into oceans would allow plankton to absorb carbon, therefore reducing the overall carbon footprint. While these ideas seem a bit abstract and over the top, they offer possibilities of hope for those who are worried about the direction the planet is moving in regarding climate change.
Resulting from a loss of sea-ice habitat, human-polar bear conflict numbers have continued to climb. With nowhere to go, polar bears continue to move inland toward human civilizations. Increases in confrontations have been found to be related to general motives such as denning mothers and her cubs, or polar bears following their noses in search of food. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the arctic environment is warming twice as fast as any other region on earth. This forces animals to adapt at a faster rate than other organisms in other areas. The loss of arctic habitat is especially detrimental because both wildlife and humans rely on arctic ice for survival. When mother polar bears feel it is unsafe to den on melting ice, they move toward a more stable location. These seemingly more secure locations are on solid land. The only issue? Vulnerable polar bears are now closer to human activity than they have been before. Safe havens that have been created for the safety of polar bears are now being threatened by incoming industrialization approved by the U.S. Congress. Oil and gas drilling in the Arctic poses an ominent problem to polar bear mothers and their cubs. If the drilling disturbs the polar bears for any reason, the polar bears leave the dens. This puts the polar bears in an extremely perilous situation, and the lives of the young cubs are jeopardized when exposed to the relentless elements of the outside world. Polar Bears International released an analysis revealing there is a one-in-four chance that this human equipment will crush a polar bear den. This is a preventable problem, and endangering polar bears along with other animals in order to benefit humans in a way that not only hurts arctic wildlife presently, but also contributes to climate change, is an unreasonable excuse for the actions being carried out by various organizations.
Preserving polar bears as a species and arctic habitats is vital not only to the other wildlife in the area but also to the arctic ecosystem as a whole. At the top of the food chain, polar bears affect the overall well-being of the marine environments where they hunt. Safeguarding the species that has become a large part of both arctic cultures and the arctic habitat only benefits the polar bears and those who interact with them.

Works Cited
Biello, David. “10 Solutions for Climate Change.” Scientific American, 26 Nov. 2007,
McRae, Mike. “What Is Anthropogenic Global Warming?” ScienceAlert,
“Polar Bear.” WWF, World Wildlife Fund,
“Polar Bear / Human Conflict.” Polar Bear / Human Conflict | WWF Arctic,
“Scientific Consensus: Earth’s Climate Is Warming.” NASA, NASA, 3 Oct. 2019,
Swaminathan, Nikhil. “If Cutting Carbon Isn’t Enough, Can Climate Intervention Turn Down the Heat?” Scientific American, 5 June 2007,
July 10 2019. IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group,