Explore this issue:<\/p>\n

Separating fact from fiction: polar bears and climate change<\/a><\/li>\n
Polar bear guide: where they\u2019re found, what they eat, and why they\u2019re threatened<\/a><\/li>\n
Stunning photos of polar bear families in Canada<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
\u00a9 Christine Haines\/Getty<\/em><\/p>\n
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Susan Crockford, an independent scientist who studies the historical distribution of polar bears, but was not involved in this research, says that the study provides evidence that polar bears can thrive in areas without summer sea ice. She notes that, crucially, sea ice is available in the spring, when mothers are feeding cubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolar bears are unlikely to require such refugia because summer hunting is not a crucial activity,\u201d says Crockford. \u201cFjords fed by glaciers are important habitats because of the shorefast ice that forms in them every winter and it turns out, there are rather a lot of them across the Arctic, which could support a sizeable bear population.\u201d<\/p>\n
Please note that external videos may contain ads.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>Laidre is less optimistic. \u201cGlacier ice may help small numbers of polar bears survive for longer periods under climate warming, and may be important to the species\u2019 persistence, but it is not available for the vast majority of polar bears,\u201d she says. \u201cLoss of Arctic sea ice is still the primary threat to all polar bears. This study does not change that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Main image: A southeast Greenland polar bear on glacier, or freshwater, ice. \u00a9\u00a0Thomas W Johansen\/<a href=\"\/\/omg.jpl.nasa.gov\/portal\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">NASA Oceans Melting Greenland<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Stuart Blackman Published: Thursday, 18 August 2022 at 12:00 am An isolated, genetically distinct population of polar bears has been discovered in southeast Greenland where it is thriving despite a lack of summer sea ice \u2013 conditions projected for the High Arctic later this century as temperatures rise. The biologists behind the discovery estimate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Thursday, 18 August 2022 at 12:00 am An isolated, genetically distinct population of polar bears has been discovered in southeast Greenland where it is thriving despite a lack of summer sea ice \u2013 conditions projected for the High Arctic later this century as temperatures rise. The biologists behind the discovery estimate…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/19688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}