Polar Bear Hunting

"Hunting is important to some Indigenous peoples in terms of both culture and subsistence. But vigilance is needed to ensure quota systems are sustainable, keeping the harvest within the bounds that populations can support.”

While climate change remains the overarching threat to the bears, recently overharvest has started bubbling up as an issue. It’s a concern we are monitoring closely, as is the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, which is composed of scientists from the five polar bear nations. 

Historically, overhunting was the polar bears’ greatest threat. From the 1800s up through the 1960s, commercial and later sport hunters greatly reduced polar bear numbers. Populations rebounded in most places after the five polar bear nations signed the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears. The Agreement halted commercial hunting and significantly curtailed sport hunting.

The Agreement allowed legal, sustainable harvest to continue on a limited basis for Indigenous peoples in some countries, based on quota systems that allow populations to regenerate. These hunts have long been an important part of Indigenous cultural traditions and are part of subsistence lifestyles in some regions.

As part of our own value system and respect for Indigenous peoples, we have not opposed these limited hunts—but ensuring they remain sustainable requires vigilance. Currently, we are concerned about the recent move by Nunavut, Canada, to change its harvest ratio from a 2:1 male-female ratio to 1:1. Not only is this potentially not sustainable in its current form, but it affects roughly two-thirds of the global population of polar bears. It also impacts management in other countries and adjacent provinces that share polar bear populations with Nunavut yet have had no say in the decision.

At the 2024 meeting of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, members called out this threat and are in dialogue with members of the Polar Bear Range States—the management body for polar bears—on the urgent need for Nunavut to address this. 

Aside from the harvest situation in Nunavut, polar bear quota systems will require careful monitoring across the Arctic as habitat loss continues. Polar bears depend on the sea-ice surface to catch their seal prey, and global warming means progressively less sea ice on which they can hunt. If sea ice declines continue to drive down population numbers, ultimately there will be no sustainable harvest anywhere.

At this point, however, global warming is affecting only some polar bear populations. Those that are not yet seeing the negative effects of habitat loss can provide a managed harvest for some time to come. Maintaining these harvests in the longer term depends on reducing the rise in greenhouse gas concentrations and adjusting management plans as new population estimates are published.

The most important point to remember is that without reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, sea ice can only continue to decline. Without sea ice, there will be few polar bears in very few places—and, at that point, we will not be concerned about managing hunts. Research shows, however, that it's not too late to save polar bears and their sea ice home if we act soon to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.