Polar bear
The meeting of the parties to the International Agreement on
the Conservation of Polar Bears in September ensured future
polar bear management within the framework of an agreed plan
of action. This will also affect management of the Norwegian
segment of the population in and around Svalbard. The Polar
Institute had influence on which items were included in the
circumpolar implementation plans (2- and 10-year plans). The
action and implementation plans stipulate monitoring points
for management of polar bears in the Norwegian Arctic (i.e. the
Barents Sea population).
With funding from the Ministry of Climate and Environmental,
a renewed census of the Norwegian segment of the Barents Sea
polar bear population was taken in 2015. The figures suggest
that a population increase is considerably more credible than a
decrease between 2004 and 2015. (See separate article.) The polar
bear census also attracted media interest, and the Institute’s
polar bear expert served as editor and when Tromsø Museum
- The University Museum produced an issue of its “Ottar” series
devoted entirely to polar bears. Several researchers at the Polar
Institute also contributed.
Institute researchers were involved in several publications that
show how polar bear health status should be assessed, in the
context of expected effects of climate change (Patyk et al. 2015).
One study revealed a certain flexibility in mating time that might
increase the likelihood of reproductive success in changing conditions
(Smith and Aars 2015). Aars et al. (2015) shows that the
polar bear is an opportunistic feeder (e.g. eating white-beaked
dolphin), which means greater flexibility under changing climate
conditions. Another article showed that polar bears on the west
coast of Spitsbergen increasingly plunder eggs and chicks from
bird colonies, and how this is related to changes in sea ice conditions
(Prop et al. 2015).
A study comparing data obtained from bears fitted with satellite
transmitters in the 1990s and the 2000s in areas between Greenland
and Svalbard (Laidre et al. 2015) showed that polar bears seek out
areas with high sea ice coverage, but that such areas are less accessible
than they used to be. Consequently, female polar bears now
spend more time in areas with less ice. This may mean that they have
greater difficulty obtaining food.
