Is it time to stop using polar bears as climate icons?

The warming planet is causing steep declines among some of the world's 26,000 wild polar bears, but the picture is complex, say experts

- Patrick Greenfield

A lone in the Arctic, surrounded by disappearing sea ice ... few fables of the climate crisis are better known than the plight of the polar bear. The marine mammals are heavily dependent on sea ice for hunting, and as the Arctic warms, scientists warn they will become extinct across much of the region.

Long term declines have been recorded in three of the 19 polar bear subpopulations found across the Arctic, including those in the western part of Hudson Bay in Canada - among the most southerly populations - whose numbers dropped from an estimated 842 to 618 between 2016 and 2021.

But some researchers warn that this "accidental" symbol of the climate crisis is unhelpful and not universally true so far, and can undermine conservation efforts by driving mistrust with some Indigenous communities in the Arctic. They say other species are better suited as symbols of wildlife threatened by a warming world.

"It's easier to tell the public simple stories: the sea ice is melting so polar bears are doing worse. But biology and ecology are very complicated," said Prof Jon Aars, who has been leading polar bear research at the Norwegian Polar Institute on Svalbard since 2003.

The Norwegian archipelago is the most rapidly warming part of planet Earth. Temperatures there have risen 4C on average in the past 50 years and a massive amount of sea ice has disappeared, raising fears for the 300 bears there, part of a Barents Sea population of 3,000 between Svalbard and the Franz Josef Land islands in Russia.