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Polar bears in danger: Expedition highlights melting ice and offspring!
Experience polar bear scout Dennis Compayre's fascinating expedition to observe polar bear families and the challenges posed by climate change. The documentary will be broadcast on SRF 1 on October 16, 2025.
Polar bears in danger: Expedition highlights melting ice and offspring!
On October 17, 2025, a significant event will occur in the Arctic: a female polar bear gives birth to two healthy cubs in a snow cave on Hudson Bay. This birth comes against the backdrop of dramatic changes in polar bear living conditions caused by climate change. The sea ice, which is crucial for polar bear hunting, is melting at an alarming rate. Researchers note a worrying decline in the polar bear population, increasing the need to take effective conservation measures. The environmental situation is examined from a variety of scientific perspectives, including recent studies examining the effects of global warming on polar bears, such as the review of climate impacts published by Stirling and Derocher (2012) in the journal Global Change Biology.
Dennis Compayre, an experienced polar bear scout, plans a year-long expedition to document the survival of a polar bear family. His decades of experience enable him to identify individual bears. The main goal of the expedition is to study the challenges facing polar bears today and observe their response to the disappearing ice. This expedition comes at a critical time, as the bear family's first major migration toward Hudson Bay begins and the polar bears are on increasingly thin ice, severely limiting their hunting opportunities. The mother did not eat while raising her young and only supplied them with mother's milk.
Climate change and its effects
The change in living conditions in the Arctic is a central topic in the discussion about the survival of polar bears. Already in studies such as that by Crawford et al. (2021), open water periods in the Arctic are predicted to become longer by 2100, having dire impacts on polar bear habitats. Monotonous habitats and the decline in hunting opportunities due to dwindling sea ice are putting both the food situation and the reproduction of polar bears to the test. According to a 2018 analysis of polar bear demographics in Hudson Bay, there are strong links between declining sea ice and the survival rate of young bears.
The documentary about the expedition and the life of the polar bears will be broadcast on Thursday, October 16, 2025, at 8:10 p.m. on SRF 1. This program aims to not only address the important questions surrounding the survival of polar bears, but also to raise public awareness of the urgent challenges facing these majestic animals.