We speak with Alysa McCall, Polar Bears International staff scientist and director of conservation outreach to figure out what is really going on with climate change and the “white hairy canaries” of the Arctic.

As part of her Norway expedition, Whittal also joined female citizen scientists, Sunniva Sorby and Hilde Falun Strom. The two women spent more than 19 months in solitary in a cabin on Svalbard, documenting and collecting scientific data on behalf of NASA, Polar Bears International and other organizations.

Money quote from Geoff York, from Polar Bears International: “As of Nov. 28 this year, the bears in western Hudson Bay had spent 164 days on shore, he said. That’s tied for the fifth-longest amount of time the bears have spent off the ice since 1979.” CBC, 9 December 2023 [my bold]

“This report advances Synthetic Aperture Radar as a promising method for polar bear den detection, which is critical for protecting polar bears alongside human activity,” says Geoff York, senior director of research and policy at Polar Bears International.

Researchers from Simon Fraser University (SFU) and Brigham Young University (BYU), collaborating with Polar Bears International, hope that improving detection tools to locate dens—which are nearly invisible and buried under snow—will help efforts to protect mother polar bears and their cubs.

Churchill, located on the shore of Hudson Bay in Manitoba’s far north, is billed as the “Polar Bear Capital of the World” because of the bears’ presence in town at certain times of year, and Kt Miller has been visiting from her home in Montana for more than a decade while working with Polar Bears International. She took photos and video, and helped the non-profit set up and operate livestreaming cameras that catch polar bears and other wildlife in their element.

“I think everyone’s holding their breath to see what happens with this El Niño shift over the next four or five years,” Geoff York, senior director of research and policy with Polar Bears International, says. The group, with offices in Bozeman, Montana and Winnipeg, is a non-profit organization dedicated to polar bear conservation across the Arctic.

“When we looked back at how management agencies and industry were doing using this tool, the answer was ‘not that great,’” says Geoff York, PBI’s senior director of research and policy. A 2020 study co-authored by York found that FLIR failed to spot 55 percent of polar bear dens. Part of the problem is that the best weather windows for FLIR—which works better during particularly long cold periods—are now fewer and farther between because of climate change.

They buy works from Indigenous artists and display it in retail locations and around the Toronto headquarters, which was exciting to see. Canada Goose also partnered with Polar Bears International to protect polar bears and counter climate change in the Arctic.

The town of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada is known as the “Polar Bear Capital of the World.” Tourists go out on the tundra to see them in the wild. Now, as climate change shrinks their natural habitat, more and more bears are going into town. NBC News’ Anne Thompson follows the officials charged with keeping the bears out of town and speaks with Polar Bears International’s Geoff York about why this is happening.

“I think everyone’s holding their breath to see what happens with this El Niño shift over the next four or five years,” says Geoff York, senior director of research and policy with Polar Bears International. The group, with offices in Bozeman, Mont., and Winnipeg, is a non-profit organization dedicated to polar bear conservation across the Arctic.

Polar Bears International and Explore.org: Churchill, Manitoba, CanadaChurchill, Manitoba, may be best known as a viewing destination for polar bears and beluga whales, but in the winter, it's a top spot to see the northern lights.

“Polar bear attacks on people are very rare,” says Geoff York, senior director of conservation with PBI, who is leading its coexistence initiatives. “Attacks that result in death are very rare. We want to keep it that way.”

Polar Bears International (PBI) is in its final year of instructing an AI radar system, dubbed Bear-dar, to detect bears and alert communities around the clock. PBI is trying to determine if it can be trained to recognize polar bears and warn residents of nearby animals, giving them time to respond so both remain safe from harm.

Luckily, you won’t be competing against too many other boats to catch a glimpse of the whales. "Overtourism is not a problem for Churchill," says Kieran McIver, Operations Manager at Polar Bears International, which also studies belugas.

"As the sea ice melts in the summertime, seals can still catch fish and other organisms that they feed on, while swimming around all summer long," said Steve Amstrup, a co-author of the study and chief scientist emeritus at Polar Bears International. "But polar bears can't swim as well as seals can, so that potential food source is unavailable when sea ice is unavailable."

‘A shrinking polar ice-cap and shortening polar ice season has pitched the species to the fore-front of conservation concerns, so much so that the conservation groups including Polar Bears International now feel that the modern zoo community has an increasingly important role to play, which includes keeping and managing polar bears within collections long term.’

For the past four years, Geoff York, senior director for science and policy at the conservation organization Polar Bears International, has been developing an AI early warning radar system that can detect polar bears remotely and send alerts to notify people of their presence.

A polar bear's main diet is fat, and they have to eat around 43 ringed seals per year to survive. "They're able to digest that fat with a 96 to 97 per cent efficiency," says Dr. Ian Stirling, a scientific advisor at Polar Bears International.

You ever think about polar bear milk? Yeah, us neither… but a recent email from the folks over at Polar Bears International got us thinking about their lactation situation. With Polar Bear Week being celebrated every year on the first week of November, now seemed as good a time as any to get into it.