Why are polar bears migrating to Russia from Alaska?

It is reported that between 2001 and 2010, there was a 40 per cent drop in Alaska’s polar bear population. This is of great concern to us humans as well because one of the many signs of global warming is the change in animal population and habitation.

This drop-in polar bear population is being credited to polar bears’ migration to Russia from Alaska due to rising temperatures in Alaska. In the last 50 years, Alaska’s annual average temperature rose by 4.8 degrees Celsius. This rise has resulted in the loss of sea ice that directly affects the bears by redistricting their hunting ground.

The migration has resulted in a booming increase in polar bear numbers in Russia’s Wrangel Island.

This is not the first time polar bears were seen migrating to colder places. In 2019, around 60 polar bears were spotted in one of Russia’s remotest regions of Ryrkaypiy. Polar bears rely on sea ice for hunting seals, their primary food source. But the spread of ice has been on the decline as climate change accelerates the rise in temperatures at the poles, keeping them on land where it's harder to catch seals.

While the bears can fast for months, their survival depends on how much energy they've managed to reserve through eating ahead of time, the energy they expend during the fast and how long a fasting period lasts.

In at least two regional groups of polar bears, prolonged fasting periods have already been shown to negatively affect their body condition, reproduction rates and size of their populations. This trend is expected to be seen across groups of polar bears in the Arctic as ice loss continues.

Polar bears have long been the poster child of the consequences of climate change. There are an estimated 22,000 to 31,000 polar bears in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund, although precise numbers are hard to determine due to their remote habitat. The species is listed as vulnerable.