Can a Polar Bear Live Without Sea Ice?

In Southeast Greenland, polar bears live where the sea ice stays away more than 100 days longer than the species' estimated fasting limit. And they're still there. Every autumn, the polar bears of Hudson Bay wait on the shore near Churchill, Manitoba, for the bay to freeze. Twenty of them wore video collars through part of their summer ashore. What happened to the ones that rested, the ones that roamed, and the ones that swam? Polar bears on land eat berries, kelp, birds and goose eggs. On Svalbard, one young bear chased a reindeer into the sea. So why can't they just live like a grizzly? And how do Greenland's bears get through a gap that should be too long? Have you seen the bears at Churchill, or another polar bear in the wild? Tell me where in the comments. CHAPTERS 0:00 The bears that shouldn't be there 1:07 Waiting for the ice 1:48 The hunt at the breathing hole 3:12 How long can a bear wait? 5:11 Twenty bears, twenty cameras 6:11 Rest, roam or swim? 7:52 A day and a half of eggs 9:25 A reindeer in the sea 11:19 The one bear that gained 13:36 Ice from the glaciers 15:19 What one bear can't tell you 18:09 So can it live without ice? SOURCES Laidre et al. (2022), Science: polar bears in Southeast Greenland that hunt from glacier ice Pagano et al. (2024), Nature Communications: twenty video-collared polar bears on the Hudson Bay shore Rode et al. (2015), Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment: can land foods replace the sea-ice hunt? Stempniewicz et al. (2021), Polar Biology: a polar bear hunting reindeer on Svalbard Pagano et al. (2018), Science: the energy a polar bear spends on the sea ice Molnar et al. (2020), Nature Climate Change: fasting-season length and polar bear persistence IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group: population status, subpopulation by subpopulation FOOTAGE Concord via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA) Garst, Warren, 1922-2016, photographer via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA) Andreas Weith via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA) cazalegg via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY) Christine Zenino from Chicago, US via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY) Clemens Stockner via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA) Pixabay: Cristian-Manieri, dianakuehn30010, Eaktas06, TungArt7, DistillVideos Landsat data from the U.S, USFWSAlaska, NASA ICE #polarbear #wildlife #arctic