Standing on the deck of the small ship, the M/S Stockholm, I scanned a landscape of frightening monotony, a crumpled blanket of snow and ice extending left and right and onto the horizon, under a canopy of a brilliant blue and cloudless sky. No living thing was in sight, no bird flew overhead, no dark, comma-shaped dots signifying the presence of a hauled-out seal, nothing but the cold, corrugated surface of unending ice fields. How could anything live in this landscape, let alone the largest terrestrial predator on earth? Experiencing the environment of the ice bear, the Polar Bear, first hand, infused in me an even greater appreciation for this magnificent predator, this, the king of the Arctic landscape.
Polar Bears are one of the most recognized and well-known animals in the entire world. And yet, despite its fame and familiarity, the Polar Bear lives in one of the most remote and infrequently visited locations on our planet, the Arctic. This is the land of snow and ice, and the Polar Bear is the apex predator of this habitat, but these great white bears are also found far south of the Arctic Circle. On the southern shores of Canada’s James Bay at the same latitude as London, England, Polar Bears spend the summer on land, waiting for the cold of winter and the ice they need for hunting.
The Polar Bear is also considered a marine mammal, which might seem odd considering its cousins, the six other species of bear (the North American Black Bear, Asiatic Black Bear, Brown Bear or Grizzly, Spectacled Bear, Sloth Bear, and Sun Bear) are all terrestrial, land-based mammals. As a marine mammal, Polar Bears share that rather loose grouping with walruses, seals, whales, and sea otters, all mammals closely associated with a life in the sea. A Polar Bear, however, may spend its entire life in or on water, as ice is just the solid form of water. A Polar Bear cub born in an ice cave in a sheltered ridge of pack ice could spend the rest of its life walking the ice, stalking seals and seeking carrion, or swimming from one ice floe to another.
The bear, as a predator, must of course feed on other forms of life, and despite one’s first impressions of this as a cold and barren land, the Arctic is the home to a variety of life, including some of the largest bird colonies on earth. Dovekies, or Little Auks, nest in some areas by the multiple hundreds of thousands, and Black-legged Kittiwakes, a graceful species of gull, carpet sea cliffs in what seems to be uncountable numbers. To stand at the base of one of these colonies, enveloped by the sounds of thousands of screeching birds swirling in the sky above, is an unforgettable experience, but one best done with your mouth clamped shut. In the Arctic seas, Ringed Seals, the Polar Bear’s favorite prey, number well over two million, making it one of the most numerous of all mammal species, followed by huge numbers of Harp and Bearded Seals. You will be introduced to many of these animals, many important to the Polar Bear, and all a vital part of the Arctic ecosystem.
The Arctic is a remote and sparsely inhabited land by man, and travel, research, and census-taking is limited and dangerous, especially for those studying the Polar Bear. Accordingly, knowing the exact number of any species in this region, particularly the Polar Bear, is impossible, and can only be estimated or guessed. Exactly how many Polar Bears roam the Arctic wilderness is unknown, and estimates range from a high of approximately 25,000 to a low of 16,000, a frightening discrepancy of over 40 percent. Yet since the 1960s, when the threat of extinction for the Polar Bear was finally recognized and some protections were enacted, perhaps 40,000 Polar Bears have been killed, a number that is quite likely twice the number of bears presently alive. How and why these wide-ranging estimates pose grave danger to the bear will be explored later in this book.
Today, this magnificent predator, the largest non-marine carnivore on Earth, is in danger of extinction. When I began this book I, like too many, was only vaguely aware of the threats facing the Arctic regions and the Polar Bear. As our Earth warms, the Arctic is doing so at nearly twice the speed of the rest of the planet. Ice melts earlier in the spring and freezes later in the fall. Pack ice retreats, stranding Polar Bears on barren land where food is scarce. With more open water, stronger storms and higher waves develop, breaking up ice that was once fairly secure, increasing the amount of open ocean and setting the stage for even greater wave action and further ice erosion and breakup. Since the range of the Polar Bear is defined by the extent of winter sea ice, its very existence is dependent upon ice. In many areas, that critical ice is vanishing, literally melting beneath the Polar Bear’s huge paws.
One could, perhaps, liken the Polar Bear to the proverbial canary in the coal mine, a harbinger of threats all of us may face in the not too distant future. In that way, the bear is playing a critical role, becoming an icon for the threat of global warming. Of course, the Polar Bear holds such fascination for so many other reasons. Its color is unique, ranging from a nearly pigment-free pure white to a dirty yellow, and even brownish-black if this white bear has spent much time on land. It is a big, imposing animal as well, with males often over 1,000 pounds. And as a predator, the bear evokes a special, visceral mystique for a variety of reasons. Perhaps though, it is the land itself, so remote and seemingly so hostile, cold and dark and barren, and our knowing that the Polar Bear thrives in an environment so challenging to us that it makes this predator such a precious inhabitant of the world we share. This book will showcase much of what makes this bear one of the world’s favorite animals.