The polar bears of Hudson Bay: cubs, climate, and calories, part 2

We learn about calorie counting for polar bears and what the future could look like for the Hudson Bay polar bear population.

We’re back in the helicopter with polar bear researchers Dr. Nick Lunn and Dave McGeachy, searching for mother bears with cubs. 

This is springtime over the huge, frigid landscape. Mother bears are waking up after eight months of fasting and heading out to the sea ice of Hudson Bay. 

Looking across this hostile environment - nothing but ice and biting cold wind - really makes you think about what it takes for these bears to survive. And how they’ve evolved for these conditions. 

And now, during the springtime, the name of the game is seals. Eat as much as you can before the ice goes away. Especially if you’re a mother with new cubs. They each dug a maternal den in the fall, gave birth in December, nursed their cubs, and are now coming out very hungry. 

In this last episode of Season 5, we’ll look at the challenges that polar bears mothers and cubs face in the spring. There is a whole list of dangers before we even get to climate change and loss of sea ice. And we’ll explore how the ever growing season of summer is a threat to the survival of this population around western Hudson Bay in the Canadian north.

Check out part 2 of the behind the scenes footage of our Churchill journey.

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