Polar bears in Norway’s Svalbard are thicker than before, according to a recent study

Norwegian In the Archipelago Sea of ​​Svalbard, polar bears are plumper than before.

Recently published by Scientific Reports in the study monitored and measured 770 individuals of the Finnish polar bear population between 1992 and 2019. The researchers noticed that the polar bears are now considerably fatter – and therefore in better shape.

“The chubbier the bear is, the better,” comments the lead researcher John Aars from the Norsk Polarinstitutt research institute BBC:lle.

The result is contrary to the researchers’ expectations. Sea ice is vital for polar bears, as the fatty meat of seals loitering on ice floes is their essential food. As the climate warms, the arctic ice is decreasing all the time, making it more difficult for polar bears to get food.

According to the research article, the melting of sea ice in the Barents Sea has been significantly greater than in other areas where polar bears live, because the climate there has warmed faster.

Unexpected the researchers explain the result by the fact that the polar bears in Väippuvuorti may have adapted to the shrinking ice situation. They may have learned to hunt more food from land, such as reindeer and walruses.

In Norway, walruses have been protected since the 1950s, when they were almost hunted to extinction. With protection, their number has increased. Apparently, the polar bears have found a new source of fatty food in them.

“There are much more walruses these days [niille saalistettavaksi]. It is also possible that polar bears prey on seals more efficiently”, Aars estimates.

According to Aars, this could be explained by the fact that as the ice floes shrink, the seals gather in a smaller area, which makes it easier for predators to prey on them.

Good news are still only temporary, researchers believe.

The increased populations of walruses and reindeer help the polar bears only temporarily. As the sea ice continues to melt, the white-furred beasts must travel ever longer distances – and expend ever more energy – to find their prey.

In addition, another study examining the same polar bears found that the more polar bears spent their days away from the ice, it increased the mortality of cubs, bears on the threshold of adulthood, and old female bears.

Global warming has also been found to be directly connected to, for example, the decrease in the polar bear population in Canada’s Hudson Bay.