The bears need platforms of ice to reach their prey of ringed and bearded seals. Some sea ice lies over more productive hunting areas than others. Like other predators at the top of the food chain, polar bears have a low reproductive rate. One or two cubs are born in midwinter and stay with their mother for two years. read more
Polar bears are good swimmers, but they are still land animals and need something solid to rest on and eat their prey. Their main prey, marine mammals such as seals, lives in the icy polar waters far from land so the polar bears have to go to them and it's too far to swim out, catch prey and bring it back to land. read more
Polar bears are tied to the sea ice for nearly all of their life cycle functions. Most important of these is foraging, or access to food. Polar bears almost exclusively eat seals, and they are equally as dependent upon the sea for their nutrition as are seals, whales, and other aquatic mammals. read more
Simply put, if there isn’t enough sea ice, seals can’t haul out on the ice, and polar bears can’t continue to hunt. In each of the first three years of the USGS surveys, the near-shore ice melted an average of about 100 days, and the Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population grew about 5 percent per year. read more