As the sea ice melts due to climate change, the trend of polar bears getting thinner and having fewer cubs has been well documented in areas such as Baffin Bay, a stretch of ocean between Greenland and Canada’s Baffin Island, and Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada.A population of bears in Norway’s Arctic are bucking the trend, however, getting fatter and healthier even as the ice melts rapidly, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports on ThursdayThe Barents Sea area, off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia, has endured bigger temperature rises — up to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 Fahrenheit, per decade in some parts — than other regions in the Arctic over the past few decades, the researchers from Norway, the United Kingdom and Canada noted.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe region has lost sea-ice habitat more than twice as fast as any other area where polar bears live.Because of this, the researchers predicted that the bears would be leaner in the years when sea ice was less available.Wild animals’ body condition usually gives early warning signs about the impact of environmental changes on their populations, according to the study.Looking at the 27-year period between 1992 and 2019, they compared 1,188 body measurement records relating to 770 adult polar bears taken on Svalbard, a Norwegian-owned archipelago in the Barents Sea, with the number of ice-free days in the region.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe number of days the polar bears had to go without ice increased by approximately 100 days over that time period. Yet, after an initial decline in their body condition from 1995 to 2000, they actually became fatter and fitter in the two decades that followed.So, while the ice was decreasing — reducing the bears’ ability to hunt for seals — their fat reserves were growing.The head of the Polar Bear Program in Norway and lead study author Jon Aars (center), and Norwegian veterinarian Rolf Arne Olberg (right), measure a big male polar bear in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 17, 2025. – Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images“The most likely explanation is that polar bears in Svalbard have so far been able to compensate for reduced access to sea ice by exploiting alternative …
