THE STATE OF THE
POLAR BEAR REPORT
2023
The Global Warming Policy Foundation
Briefing 67
Susan Crockford
The State of the Polar Bear Report 2023
Susan Crockford
Briefing 67, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
© Copyright 2024, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
iii
Contents
About the author iii
Foreword v
Executive summary v
1. Introduction 1
2. Conservation status 1
3. Population trends 5
4. Habitat and primary productivity 6
5. Human/bear interactions 11
6. Discussion 14
Bibliography 16
Notes 24
About the Global Warming Policy Foundation 26
About the author
Dr Susan Crockford is an evolutionary biologist and has been working for more than 40 years in
archaeozoology, paleozoology and forensic zoology.1
 She is a former adjunct professor at the
University of Victoria, British Columbia and works full time for a private consulting company she
co-owns (Pacific Identifications Inc). She is the author of Eaten: A Novel (a science-based polar bear
attack thriller), Polar Bear Facts and Myths (for ages seven and up, also available in French, German,
Dutch, Portuguese, and Norwegian), Polar Bears Have Big Feet (for preschoolers), and several
fully referenced books including, Polar Bear Evolution: A Model for the Origin of Species, Sir David
Attenborough and the Walrus Deception, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened, and Polar
Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change,2 as well as a scientific paper on polar bear conservation status and a peer-reviewed paper on the distribution of ancient polar bear remains.3
 She has
authored several earlier briefing papers, reports, and videos for GWPF, as well as opinion pieces for
major news outlets, on polar bear and walrus ecology and conservation.4
 Susan Crockford blogs
at www.polarbearscience.com. 

v
Foreword
This report is intended to provide
a brief update on the habitat and
conservation status of polar bears,
with commentary regarding inconsistencies and sources of bias found
in recent literature that won’t be
found elsewhere. It is a summary
of the most recent information
on polar bears, relative to historical records, based on a review of
2023 scientific literature and media
reports, and, in places, reiterates or
updates information provided in
previous papers. This publication
is intended for a wide audience,
including scientists, teachers,
students, decision-makers, and
members of the general public
interested in polar bears and the
Arctic sea ice environment.
Executive summary
2023 marked 50 years of international cooperation to protect
polar bears across the Arctic.
Those efforts should be hailed as
a conservation success story: from
late-1960s population estimate by
the US Fish and Wildlife Service of
about 12,000 individuals, numbers
have almost tripled, to just over
32,000 in 2023 (with a wide range
of potential error for both estimates).
• There were no reports from
the Arctic in 2023 indicating polar
bears were being harmed due to
lack of suitable habitat, in part
because Arctic sea ice in summer
has not declined since 2007.
• Contrary to expectations, a
study in Svalbard found a decrease
in polar bears killed in defense of
life or property over the last 40
years, despite profound declines in
sea ice over the last two decades.
• A survey of Southern Hudson
Bay polar bears in 2021 showed
an astonishing 30% increase over
five years, which adds another 223
bears to the global total.
• A concurrent survey of Western
Hudson Bay polar bears in 2021
showed that numbers had not
declined since 2011, which also
means they have not declined
since 2004. Movement of polar
bears across the boundaries with
neighbouring subpopulations
may account for the appearance
of a decline, when none actually
occurred.
• The IUCN Polar Bear Specialist
Group has ignored a 2016 recommendation that the boundaries
of three Hudson Bay subpopulations (Western HB, Southern HB,
and Foxe Basin) be adjusted to
account for genetic distinctiveness
of bears inhabiting the Hudson Bay
region. A similar boundary issue
in the western Arctic between the
Chukchi Sea, and the Southern and
Northern Beaufort subpopulations,
based on known movements of
bears between regions, has been
acknowledged since 2014 but has
not yet been resolved.
• The US Fish and Wildlife Service
and the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist
Group, in their 2023 reports, failed
to officially acknowledge the newfound South-East Greenland bears
as the 20th subpopulation, despite
undisputed evidence that this is a
genetically distinct and geographically isolated group. Numbers are
estimated at 234 individuals.

1
1. Introduction
Fifty years ago, on 15 November 1973, the five Arctic nations of
Canada, Russia, the USA, Norway and Greenland signed an international treaty to protect polar bears against the rampant overhunting
that had taken place in the first half of the 20th century, and which
had decimated many subpopulations. The treaty was effective, and
by the late 1990s, polar bear populations that could be studied had at
least doubled, making it a huge conservation success story. However,
in 2009, the wording of the treaty was amended to protect the bears
against on-going and future loss of sea ice habitat , which was
assumed to be caused by human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. This was in line with similar declarations by the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the US Endangered
Species Act (USESA). These pessimistic conservation assessments,
based on computer-modelled future declines rather than observed
conditions, have been upheld ever since, even as the predicted relationship between polar bear survival and sea-ice loss has failed to
emerge in the observational data.5
The current population of polar bears is large, and their historical range has not diminished due to habitat loss since 1979. Indeed,
previously inhabited areas have been recolonised as numbers have
recovered: recent data suggest that territory in Davis Strait used before
1970 during the summer ice-free period – by all ages and by pregnant
females for maternity denning – is now being used once again.6.
2. Conservation status
The IUCN, in their 2015 Red List assessment, provided by the Polar
Bear Specialist Group (PBSG), again listed polar bears as ‘vulnerable’
to extinction, just as it did in 2006. Similarly, in 2023 the US Fish and
Wildlife Service (USFWS) upheld its 2008 conclusion that polar bears
were ‘threatened’ with extinction. In both instances, conservation
status assessments have been based on computer-modelled predictions of future sea-ice conditions and assumed resultant population
declines rather than current conditions.7
In Canada, the 2018 COSEWIC report assigned a status of ‘special
concern’ to the species. This assessment had not changed by 2023.8
3. Population size at 2023
Global
The latest official estimate for the global population, from 17 October
2023, is the PBSG estimate of 26,000 (range 22,000–31,000), arrived
at in 2015 and unadjusted since then. In their 2023 assessment, the
PBSG has failed to increase this estimate, even to account for undisputed, statistically-significant increases in two subpopulations and
the addition of a newly-discovered subpopulation, which should reasonably boost their very conservative mid-point estimate to about
26,600: Kane Basin is up by 133, Southern Hudson Bay is up by 223,
and newly-discovered SE Greenland adds another 234.9
2
However, survey results postdating preparation of the 2015
assessment, including those made public after July 2021 (for
Davis Strait, Chukchi Sea, SE Greenland, Western Hudson Bay, and
Southern Hudson Bay), plausibly brought the mid-point total to
just over 32,000 (Figure 1).10
A plan to survey all Russian polar bear subpopulations between
2021 and 2023 seems to have been put on hold. In addition, an
abundance estimate for the Viscount Melville subpopulation in the
western Canadian Arctic has still not been released, even though
a three-year survey completed in 2014 has produced other published data.11 Surveys of Lancaster Sound and East Greenland
were completed in spring 2023, and these results, when released,
may put the global population mid-point estimate well above
32,000.12 While there is a wide margin of potential error attached
to this number, it is nowhere near the figure of 7,493 (6,660–8,325),
implicit in the prediction that two thirds of the global population
of polar bears would be gone by now, given the sea ice conditions
prevailing since 2007.13
Note that the 2023 USFWS Status Report did not include the
Kara Sea estimate of 3,200 bears, the Laptev Sea estimate of 1,000
bears, or the East Greenland estimate of 2,000 bears, figures that
were used for the 2015 IUCN assessment. It also used the lowest
of three available 2016 estimates for the Chukchi Sea, as discussed
in the State of the Polar Bear Report 2021.
14 Although the USFWS
report was published in August 2023, it also did not include results
of the 2021 assessments of the Western and Southern Hudson
Bay subpopulations that were published in November 2022, or
the newly-discovered subpopulation of South East Greenland
reported in June 2022.15.
Figure1: Estimates of the
global polar bear population, 1960 to date.
60
40
20
0
1960
000s
1980 2000 2020
3
Subpopulation survey results published in 2022
For detailed discussions of the changing status and abundance
issues over time for all 19 subpopulations, see the State of the Polar
Bear Report 2018.
16
Western Hudson Bay (WH)
An aerial survey conducted in September 2021 generated a new
subpopulation estimate of 618 (range 385–852), an apparent
decline of 27% since the 2016 estimate of 842 (range 562–1121)
and about a 40% decline from a 2011 estimate of 949 (range 618–
1280) that used similar survey methods. However, the WH 2021
report authors stated categorically that this apparent decline since
2011 was not statistically significant, in part due to evidence that
some bears moved into neighbouring subpopulations combined
with the large margins of error. While it seems inconceivable that
a decline of 40% over 10 years could be statistically insignificant,
recall that a similar conclusion was reached in 2015 regarding the
42% increase in abundance of Svalbard bears. Since the estimate
calculated in 2004 was 935 (range 794–1076), it seems the abundance of WH polar bears has not changed since 2004.17 Note that
a more comprehensive survey was conducted in 2011, generating
an estimate of 1030 (range 754–1406). This became the official WH
estimate used by the PBSG.18
Given the conclusions of the 2021 survey that the 2016 and 2021
estimates were not statistically different from the 2011 estimate, it
appears that the 2021 comprehensive estimate of 1030 may still
be the most valid figure for WH.
The 2021 WH survey authors also made it clear that the most
recent population estimate was not associated with poor ice conditions, since sea-ice levels had been as good as the 1980s in four
out of the five years between 2017 and 2021. Confoundingly, they
could not explain why adult females and subadults were underrepresented in the population.
No evidence was provided for lack of prey, and although
emigration to neighbouring Southern Hudson Bay was largely
dismissed as an explanation, the possibility of a movement north
into Foxe Basin was not explored.
This is odd, since a 2016 genetic study suggested that the
northern boundary for WH polar bears should be moved to the
north of Southampton Island (a major denning area currently
included in FB) and the SH boundary to the north of Akimiski
Island in James Bay, adding the entire southern Hudson Bay coast
in Ontario, as well as the Belcher Islands, to WH (currently included
in SH), leaving only James Bay to represent SH.19
In 2023, the PBSG indicated the WH subpopulation was ‘likely
decreasing’, based on the 2021 estimate of 618 bears. However,
they did not include the caveat from the survey report that this
apparent decline was not statistically significant, and also did not
incorporate the conclusion of the 2022 Canadian Polar Bear Technical
Committee (PBTC) that indigenous knowledge (IK) assessed this
subpopulation as ‘increased’. Similarly, the 2023 assessment by the 
4
USFWS listed WH as ‘likely decreased’, based on the 2016 survey
only (2021 survey results were not included). It acknowledged
that in 2022 IK considered this subpopulation to have ‘increased’.20
Southern Hudson Bay (SH)
An aerial survey conducted in September 2021 generated a new
subpopulation estimate of 1119 (range 860–1454), which represented a 30% increase over five years. The result was considered
robust, and reflective of the true size of the population. However,
another estimate, of 1003 (range 773–1302), was generated based
on the same data. This was considered more comparable to the
2016 estimate of 780 (range 590–1029). While the authors did not
explicitly address the issue of statistical significance, they concluded
that a natural increase in numbers, via increased cub production
and survival, must have taken place in conjunction with good sea
ice conditions from 2017 to 2020, perhaps in addition to immigration from another unidentified subpopulation.21.
In their 2023 assessment, the IUCN PBSG discussed the apparent
increased abundance of SH bears, but did not unequivocally state
that the subpopulation had increased, instead only implying that
an increase may have been possible (‘years of relatively good ice
conditions, combined with comparatively reduced harvest from
2016–2021 may have buffered the population against further
decline or allowed for recovery’). They also did not include the 2022
assessment by the PBTC that IK considered the SH subpopulation
was ‘stable/likely increased’ (i.e. stable in the James Bay portion,
likely increased in southeastern Hudson Bay).22.
The 2023 assessment by the USFWS listed SH as ‘likely decreased’,
based only on 2016 survey results (2021 survey results were not
included), but did acknowledge that in 2022, IK considered this
subpopulation to be ‘stable/likely increased.’23.
Southeast Greenland (SG)
As part of a multiyear project on the status of SG polar bears that
began in 2011, surveys were conducted during mid-March and
mid-April of 2015–2017 for bears that lived below 64°N latitude.
The results were compared with data from bears living in EG further
north, which had been collected up to 2021. This southern region
of Greenland had not previously been surveyed, or even visited by
polar bear scientists, and there are no permanent human inhabitants. Few Inuit hunters even venture into the region.24
Based on capture-recapture data, a population estimate of
234 (range 111–462) was generated for SG. Weight (indicating
body condition or fatness) of almost two dozen females captured
in SG averaged 186 kg, which was similar to females in Svalbard
in the western Barents Sea (185 kg) in the 1990–2000 period and
in EG in recent years (186 kg).
Most surprisingly, there was strong evidence that these SG
polar bears are the most genetically distinct subpopulation in
the Arctic, indicating a lack of interbreeding with bears in EG for
at least 200 years.25.
5
Much emphasis was given by study authors Kirstin Laidre
and colleagues to their interpretation that bears in these SG fjords
frequently used glacier ice to hunt seals during the summer; in
other locations bears only do so occasionally. Seals feed in such
‘glacier-front’ habitats in summer because primary productivity
is high: melting glaciers in the fjords attract fish because their
food – marine plankton – is plentiful. However, the only evidence
provided of seal-hunting behaviour by polar bears in summer in
SG is one photo, taken by an unidentified photographer, of a bear
on glacier ice beside a seal kill taken in September 2016. As noted
above, the SG polar bear surveys were conducted in March and
April and therefore, frequent summer hunting of seals could not
have been observed by the authors, but was simply assumed to
have happened.
In addition, although the authors imply that glacier-front habitat
is rare, it is in fact rather common across the Arctic and widely
used by polar bears year-round because the sea ice covering such
fjords in late winter and spring (including those in SG) are used by
ringed seals as a birthing platform. Moreover, newborn seals are
the preferred prey of polar bears, making up roughly two thirds of
their diet. Fjords with glacier ice are present all along both coasts
of Greenland, in Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land in
Russia, and in Baffin and Ellesmere Islands in the Canadian Arctic.26
The authors concluded their report with a recommendation
that SG be officially recognized by the IUCN PBSG as a polar bear
subpopulation distinct from EG for management and conservation
purposes. However, despite the fact that Dr Laidre is currently the
co-chair of the PBSG, and that in March 2023 the government of
Greenland declared SG a protected ‘new and separate management unit’, the PBSG declined to add it as a distinct subpopulation.
The 2023 USFWS assessment cited the 2022 Laidre report and its
abundance estimate for SG, but regarding a change in boundaries
for EG, it stated only that, ‘ecoregion and subpopulation status will
likely be re-evaluated by PBSG in 2023’.27
4. Population trends
In Canada, where roughly two thirds of the world’s polar bear population live, a 2022 update from the PBTC for the first time included
assessments based on Inuit IK for each of the 13 subpopulations for
which Canada has sole or joint management responsibility. While
the ‘scientific’ assessments for trends in abundance for these subpopulations are simply the widely varying ones provided by the
PBSG in 2021, those based on IK were either ‘increased’ or ‘stable’.28
Later in 2022, the Government of Canada published updated
global polar bear population trend maps based on 2021 PBSG
‘scientific’ data: no provision was made for the conflicting information from IK discussed above, calling into question whether IK
assessments are actually given any weight in assessing current
conditions.29 And while the 2023 USFWS assessment included the
2022 Canadian IK trend information in their status table, it gave 
6
priority to 2021 PBSG scientific data.30
Figure 2 shows a more realistic representation of current
polar bear population trends based on all available information
(scientific survey results, IK, and studies on health and survival
status published up to 31 December 2023, extrapolated to regions
lacking recent survey data). This gives the following subpopulation classifications at 2023, including the new subpopulation of
SE Greenland (SG):
• seven ‘increasing’ or ‘likely increasing’ [KB, DS, MC, GB, CS, BS, SH].
• four ‘stable’ or ‘likely stable’ [BB, SB, WH, SG].
• nine ‘presumed stable or increasing’ [EG, LS, LP, KS, VM, NB, GB,
FB, NW].