Save the Polar Bears
Right now, there are fewer than 25,000 polar bears left in the wild. And this number will continue to shrink if climate change continues unabated.
For the last 20 years, the summer sea ice has been decreasing in size and melting for longer periods of time. Bears must move long distances to stay with the rapidly receding ice. In most areas, they come ashore when ice melts and rely on fat stores until the ice refreezes and they can go back out to hunt. Some polar bears, especially in the south of their range where sea ice is gone longest, now suffer from malnutrition. In extreme cases — particularly females with cubs — they may face starvation.
Any additional disturbance to a polar bear's habitat causes unnecessary stress to these already vulnerable populations. Continued oil and gas development in the Arctic, for example, threatens bears with its noise, increasing numbers of ships and equipment in their habitat, and risk of oil spills.
At WWF, we're working to protect polar bear habitats from industrial impacts, pushing for governments to take strong action on climate change and monitoring bear populations to protect them from further threats.