Polar Bear Single Mothers
ABC’s Neal Karlinsky takes a look at the special bond between Polar Bear mothers and their cubs. Outside of Churchill, Manitoba in the high Canadian Arctic, the most well-studied polar bears emerge from their winter dens.
Every year wildlife photographers flock to the frozen north in late spring to watch the new polar bear cubs emerge from their underground snow caves and glimpse daylight for the first time.
Male bears are hundreds of miles away already, feeding on the still-frozen Hudson Bay. So it is up to the mother bears to teach their cubs all they need to know to survive.
World Wildlife Fund biologist Pete Ewins says that mother bears used to have two cubs each year. Now it is much more common to see a mother polar bear with only one. “The bears are definitely in decline,” he adds.
According to the World Wildlife Fund the biggest threat to the bears is climate change. The conservation groups says the Arctic is especially hard hit, with winter temperatures in northeastern Canada now more than 18 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, and continuing to climb.
The photographers shiver in the minus 40 degree temperatures so the Arctic is still cold. But significantly warmer winter temperatures melt sea ice that polar bears depend on to reach seals and other food. That means malnourished mothers are having to trudge through deep snow longer in search of food, which jeopardizes their ability to bring bear cubs to full term.
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