This question concerns the possibility of providing floating platforms for polar bears to rest on in the absence of sea ice. It was posed independently by several people as a possible solution to diminishing ice coverage in the Far North. They came up with the idea after seven polar bears drowned off the coast of Alaska.

We posed the question to Dr. Steven C. Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska. Dr. Amstrup works with the Beaufort Sea population of polar bears, where the drownings took place.

Q: This may seem like a simplistic or even silly solution, but can you "seed"
the Arctic with floating platforms for polar bears? This would give the
bears something to rest on in the absence of ice floes. When (or if) the
weather were to become cold enough to start building the ice and snow up
again, these platforms could serve as starting cells. Is this idea
just too silly? I am growing increasingly concerned about the bears and
seeing that they are now drowning, I think something must be done.

A: The problem with disappearing ice is that ice is the platform from which polar bears hunt. Polar bears are adapted to a few very specific kinds of predation strategies, all of which depend upon access to seals at the air/sea/ice interface. Giving polar bears a place to rest doesn't solve their main problem, which is how to catch something to eat in an ice-free environment. Hence, the idea of floating platforms—even if you could figure out how to anchor them in thousands of feet of water (100 miles north of Prudhoe it is 10,000-feet deep)—does not solve the main problem that polar bears are likely to face in the future.

Dr. Steven C. Amstrup is the Ursid & Arctic Marine Team Leader at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center in Anchorage, Alaska. He also serves on PBI's Wild Bear Advisory Committee. If you'd like to submit a question for this column, please visit our Website at www.polarbearsinternational.org and send it via our contact form.