Climate change determined the number one long-term threat to polar bears
Five nations—Canada, the United States, Norway, Denmark and Russia—issued a statement that climate change is the number one long-term threat to polar bears. This follows a controversial move last year by the United States to list the polar bear as a threatened species (despite opposition from Inuit groups that hunt the bears). Not all bear experts agree that climate change is, at present, a serious danger—bear populations are much healthier now than they’ve been in decades and have been growing in some regions. But if the Arctic ice that the bears use to hunt seals does disappear, the fate of the bears would be very much at risk.