Scientists Attached Cameras to a Group of Polar Bears. The Resulting Footage Was an Alarming Reflection of Climate Change

Millions of people can’t forget the heart-wrenching footage of the starving bear captured by National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen in the late summer of 2017. Nicklen and his crew were at Somerset Island in the Canadian Arctic when they noticed this ailing bear on its deathbed. The footage showed this polar bear clinging to life- its white fur limply slathering its bony frame while its legs seemed to wobble and drag probably due to feeble muscle mass. Sadly, this is the exact condition most polar bears are spending their lives today. To bring their plight to the masses, some scientists trapped cameras to the collars of polar bears and recorded their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

As global warming steadily reduces the amount of sea ice in the Arctic, bears are missing their diet of fatty, calorie-rich ringed seals. They sit for hours and hours near the cracks in sea ice, waiting for seals to surface. Lack of food is making these bears move towards human settlements. In the meantime, all that they are left with is piles of trash and carcasses of dead animals and birds. Anthony Pagana, study lead and the Research Wildlife Biologist at the United States Geological Survey, told CNN that polar bears are at risk of starvation because of climate change.

For this study, Pagano and his team strapped wildlife cameras on the collars of 20 polar bears in Canada’s Hudson Bay. The cameras recorded 115 hours of footage, offering rare glimpses into the daily lives of these starving polar creatures. Some of the clips in this footage reveal bears feeding on bird carcasses, eating berries and grasses, and swallowing marine animals like a beluga whale. Other clips show them chewing dead antlers while engaging in playful behaviors with their partners.

“We were amazed by the video footage,” Pagano told Vox. “The video footage really highlighted how intelligent these animals are by using different behavior strategies to survive their time on land while without access to their primary prey.” In a statement, he added, “With increased land use, the expectation is that we’ll likely see increases in starvation.” The footage also revealed that some bears took long swims, which is “new and unexpected for this time of year,” Andrew Derocher, a polar bear expert at the University of Alberta, who was not involved in the study, told Vox. “These are possibly acts of desperation,” he said. “Hungry and skinny bears take more risks than fat bears.”

Essentially, these gargantuan creatures, which have existed for as long as 600,000 years, are on the verge of extinction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that there are about 26,000 polar bears left in the world and they too are expected to vanish by the end of this century.

Prior to this study, Pagano was actively tracking the activities and lifestyles of polar bears. He started out by attaching GoPro cameras and GPS trackers to two female bears. That didn’t work out because the camera ran out of battery and the lens got blasted by a chunk of ice. But he continued his research with custom-made wildlife cameras.

“This highlights the feast-or-famine lifestyle of these animals,” he told The Atlantic in 2018, adding that the breakup of ice floe is causing polar bears to miss opportunities to have their share of a calorie-rich diet. If these beasts run out of food, humans surely will run out of one of the most majestic beauties of nature. A cue to contemplate. "If this starving polar bear doesn't convince you that climate change is a problem, nothing will," said a tweet about Nicklen's footage.