Churchill, Canada – July 15, 2024 — Polar Bears International (PBI), the only nonprofit organization dedicated solely to polar bears and Arctic sea ice, hosts Arctic Sea Ice Day on July 15. Polar Bears International created this event to inspire conversations and climate action for the Arctic, which is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet. Anyone can participate by watching Polar Bears International and explore.org’s Beluga Whale Live Cam, streaming from Hudson Bay, which had record low levels of sea ice this spring. Polar Bears International encourages people to talk about climate change and get involved in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sea ice forms the base of the Arctic ecosystem and acts as Earth’s air conditioner. Collaboration is essential to preserve the sea ice that humans, polar bears, and beluga whales depend on.

“We’re thrilled to bring the Arctic to people around the world on Arctic Sea Ice Day, inspiring appreciation and action for this unique, fragile ecosystem,” says Krista Wright, executive director of Polar Bears International, adding, “As our team develops new technology like Burr on Fur to help with monitoring polar bears and advancing near-term solutions, we need world leaders to swiftly reduce emissions to protect the sea ice that sustains polar bears and humans alike.”

This Arctic Sea Ice Day coincides with the publishing of results from new, cutting-edge wildlife trackers, which were tested on wild polar bears along Hudson Bay. Called “Burr on Fur,” the project started as a collaboration between 3M and Polar Bears International to develop an alternative to traditional tracking collars (which don’t fit adult polar bear males) and ear tags (which are permanent). The study “Telemetry without collars: performance of fur- and ear-mounted satellite tags for evaluating the movement and behavior of polar bears,” published today, July 15, in the journal Animal Biotelemetry. It details results from a multi-institutional research team who tested three fur tag prototypes, which remained on the polar bears for up to sixteen weeks as they swam, foraged, and sparred. As disappearing sea ice causes polar bears to spend longer fasting on land, coexistence solutions are essential to keep polar bears and humans safe. The temporary Burr on Fur tags enable wildlife managers to track polar bears that come close to human communities, which is an essential element of fostering coexistence.

How to Participate in Arctic Sea Ice Day:

• Join Polar Bears International for a live Tundra Connections broadcast, including a Beluga Cam kick-off celebration on July 15th at 4 pm Eastern with Beluga Boat Captain  Captain Kieran McIver, Polar Bears International’s Christian Zoelly, and Assiniboine Park Conservancy’s Stephen Petersen.

• Watch the Beluga Whale Live Cams. Be sure to turn the audio on and listen to vocalizations on the Beluga Cam’s hydrophone! 

• Participate in the Beluga Bits Citizen Science Project, advancing Beluga research. And if you’re an educator, check out Beluga Bits in the Classroom.

• Watch the first episode of “Talking About Climate Change,” a four-part series from Polar Bears International, debuting on July 15 across PBI’s Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.

• Use the Arctic Sea Ice Day Toolkit to talk about the warming Arctic with your community #ArcticSeaIceDay #SaveOurSeaIce #TalkAboutIt #ClimateAction 

• Stay in the loop with all things Arctic by signing up for the Polar Bears International newsletter. 

Key Facts About Arctic Sea Ice:

• Polar bears rely on sea ice to travel, hunt, breed, and sometimes den. Sea ice loss from climate change is by far the biggest threat to polar bears.

• Ice seals and walruses also rely on sea ice for survival, using it to rest on and as a platform for giving birth to and raising their pups. Beluga whales use sea ice to hide from orca predators, as belugas’ lack of a dorsal fin allows them to swim in narrow passages under the ice.

• A new study predicts that the Southern and Western Hudson Bay polar bears — bellwethers for other polar bear populations — will likely become extinct if we fail to meet the goals set at the Paris Climate Agreement, due to disappearing sea ice. 

• This year, sea ice in eastern and southern Hudson Bay broke up very early, while ice remained in western Hudson Bay. What does that mean for the region’s polar bears? Read this article from Dr. Flavio Lehner and Dr. Joseph Northrup to find out. 

• Sea ice is to the Arctic ecosystem as soil is to the forest. Algae grow within the sea ice and form the base of the food chain. Algae feed the tiny organisms, like zooplankton, that inhabit these waters. Arctic cod feed on them. Seals eat Arctic cod. And polar bears prey on seals.

• Sea ice acts like a global air conditioner. Through a process called Arctic Amplification,  melting sea ice makes way for the darker-colored ocean to be exposed, causing less heat to be reflected away from Earth. This leads to disrupted global climates.

• The Arctic may have ice-free summers by the early 2030s, according to state-of-the-art climate models.

“Sea ice around the Arctic continues to decline. This year Hudson Bay has seen a historical early breakup of its ice cover, which reveals how weather events combined with climate change can result in unprecedented changes,” says Dr. Flavio Lehner, Polar Bears International Chief Climate Scientist and an Assistant Professor in Earth and Atmospheric Science at Cornell University, adding, “We must rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to slow the disappearance of sea ice – our collective actions matter, as every tenth of a degree of warming makes a significant difference to the fragile Arctic ecosystem.”

Beluga Cam and Beluga Bits in Churchill: To honor Arctic Sea Ice Day, Polar Bears International and explore.org, the world’s largest nature live-streaming network, launch the Beluga Whale Live Cam, broadcasting the annual migration of 57,000 belugas that journey to the warm waters of Hudson Bay’s Churchill River estuary to feed, molt, and give birth to their young. The Beluga Cam has above and below-water views streaming from Delphi the Beluga Boat on Hudson Bay near Churchill, Canada. Belugas rely on sea ice for protection from predators and for feeding. Melting sea ice also indirectly impacts belugas, as disappearing ice means there are more open lanes for commercial shipping. Shipping brings noise pollution, which hurts the belugas’ ability to communicate with one another– belugas are known as the most vocal whales in the world. 

The Beluga Cam feeds into the Beluga Bits citizen science project, a collaboration between the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, explore.org and Polar Bears International, which asks people to capture and classify screenshots from the Beluga Cam. Since Beluga Bits was launched, the project has had nearly 22,000 registered participants who’ve contributed nearly 5 million photo classifications and roughly 22,000 volunteer hours.

About Polar Bears International

Polar Bears International’s mission is to conserve polar bears and the sea ice they depend on. We also work to inspire people to care about the Arctic, the threats to its future, and the connection between this remote region and our global climate. Polar Bears International is the only nonprofit organization dedicated solely to wild polar bears and Arctic sea ice, and our staff includes scientists who study wild polar bears. The organization is a recognized leader in polar bear conservation. For more information, visit www.polarbearsinternational.org.

About explore.org

Founded in 2004 by Charles Annenberg Weingarten, Director and Vice President of the Annenberg Foundation, explore.org is a philanthropic multimedia organization with a mission to champion the selfless acts of others and create a portal into the natural world. With over 100 live streaming cameras, explore.org is the largest live nature network in the world.

About Beluga Bits

Beluga Bits is a collaboration between the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, Explore.org and Polar Bears International, among other partners. Data collected by the live cam, and classified by volunteers, helps scientists study the social structure and natural history of the beluga that visit the Churchill River in Northern Manitoba, Canada. 

Media Contacts
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Melissa Hourigan — melissa@fabricmedia.net, +1 720 988 3856