#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Previous studies have shown that the length of time female polar bears stay in their dens significantly impacts the survival chances of their cubs.
This information was reported in an article by researchers from the University of Toronto Scarborough, published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, as noted by the Krasnaya Vesna portal.
“The Arctic is warming two to four times faster than the rest of the world. People are encroaching on areas that are crucial for polar bear dens, and we know that these bears are very sensitive to disturbances. We need healthy cubs to maintain the population. We are working on developing tools to better monitor and understand their behavior so we can protect them more effectively”, Louise Archer, the lead author of the study, explains.
Archer and her colleagues studied polar bears for six years. They fitted 13 bears from the Barents sea subpopulation with satellite collars and set up cameras outside nine dens on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. They discovered that estimates of how long the bears stayed in their dens sometimes varied by several days or even a week, depending on whether they were looking at data from the collars or the cameras. The researchers created models to accurately predict the bears’ likely behaviors. These models can forecast when the bears will first leave the den, when they will go out again, and when they will finally disappear. They can also predict how external factors, like temperature, influence the behavior of mothers and their cubs.
Bears typically left their dens during the day, embarking on journeys that averaged about 27 minutes (ranging from less than a minute to nearly eight hours). About half the time, mothers would tow their cubs along, usually staying within 40 meters of the den. The likelihood of cubs appearing outside the dens increased with each degree of temperature rise and with each passing day since their first outing.
“The Arctic is a rapidly changing environment. We have lost a significant amount of sea ice, so observing how polar bears behave and respond to these changes provides valuable insights into what we can expect in other parts of the Arctic in the future”, the researchers noted.
Earlier, This Is Taimyr reported that a meteorologist in the Arctic shouted to scare off a polar bear that was stealing fish.
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Text: Maria Sokolova, Photo: Denis Kozhevnikov
