Between 2000 and 2050, polar bear numbers dropped by 70 percent, due to shrinking ice sheets caused by global warming. By 2080, they have disappeared from Greenland entirely – and from the northern Canadian coast – leaving only dwindling numbers in the interior Arctic archipelago.*
Of the few which remain, ice breaking up earlier in the year means they are forced ashore before they have time to build up sufficient fat stores. Others are forced to swim huge distances, which exhausts them, leading to drowning. The effects of global warming have led to thinner, stressed bears, decreased reproduction, and lower juvenile survival rates.