Arctic Polar Bear
All recent indicators show that sea ice in the arctic is melting at an alarming rate a problem that needs to be addressed immediately if polar bears and other species unique to the region are to survive.
Arctic polar bear. Except for one subspecies of grizzly bear the polar bear is the largest and most powerful carnivore on land. Polar bears help us gain an understanding of what is happening throughout the arctic. The polar bear ursus maritimus is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the arctic circle encompassing the arctic ocean its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the largest extant bear species as well as the largest extant predatory carnivore.
But beginning in the 1700s large scale hunting by european russian and north american hunters and trappers took place raising concerns about the future survival of polar bears. Four of the 19 polar bear populations across the arctic and sub arctic are already in decline including the western hudson bay bears while the status of others remains unknown. The former subpopulation has increased from around 325 bears in the late 1990s to 716 today while the gulf of boothia subpopulation has remained mostly stable at around 1500 bears. The two polar bear subpopulations m clintock channel and gulf of boothia are neighbours found in the central canadian arctic territory nunavut.
Unregulated commercial and recreational hunting continued until the 1970s.