Polar bears can be elusive and difficult to track in the wild, but scientists have come up with a new, noninvasive way to follow them — as well as other animals like snow leopards and Eurasian lynxes — using environmental DNA (eDNA) extracted from skin cells shed inside their paw prints in the snow. Monitoring […]
Polar bears are not only the world’s largest bear, they’re also great swimmers and at the top of the food chain in the Arctic, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The ice-dwelling bear, whose Latin name (Ursus maritimus) means “sea bear,” spends much of its time in the ocean and more than 50 percent of […]
Today is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the achievements of women and girls around the world. This year’s theme is #BreakTheBias, and one field in which gender bias remains a persistent reality is the field of science and technology. According to the American Association of University Women, women only account for 28 percent […]
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a notice of intent this week to sue the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for allegedly failing to adequately protect polar bears from a Western Arctic exploration project. Under the Endangered Species Act, a notice of intent is required 60 days before the […]
By Geoff York Whenever I’m fortunate enough to travel north, the stress of daily life seems to fall away with each mile as one goes further away from built environments and closer to raw nature. Returning to Churchill, the small community on the shores of Hudson Bay, is no different. Churchill has a slower pace […]
By Jessica Corbett A coalition of conservation groups sued the Biden administration on Thursday over the U.S. Department of the Interior’s recent rule allowing fossil fuel companies to harass polar bears and walruses while searching and drilling for oil and gas in the Southern Beaufort Sea. Announced last month by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife […]
By Jennie Gosché In late 2019, before the world was completely upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was presented a last-minute chance to photograph polar bears outside one of the northernmost villages in the United States — Kaktovik, Alaska. It was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse, and as the COVID-19 pandemic now stretches into summer […]
If world governments don’t act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most polar bear populations will not survive the century, a new study has found. Polar bears, who rely on Arctic sea ice to hunt for seals, have long been a symbol of the impacts of the climate crisis. As the ice melts, they lose the […]
The fossil fuel industry is driving polar bears to cannibalism. Scientists at the Russian Academy of Sciences said Wednesday that there were increasing reports of bears attacking other bears for food, The Moscow Times reported. “Cases of cannibalism among polar bears are a long-established fact, but we’re worried that such cases used to be found […]