Tag Archives: depth

Scientific study finds polar bears excel at diving, contradicting previous expert opinion

A recent study by Norwegian biologist Karen Lone and colleagues, who tagged 57 polar bear females with sensors around Svalbard, discovered that polar bears can dive to a maximum depth of 13.9m and can swim long distances across open water without rest. Contrary to previous claims, polar bears are excellent divers and their breath-holding ability did not seem to limit how deep they could dive.


From the abstract of the new paper by Lone and colleagues (Lone et al. 2018):

“Some bears undertook notable long-distance-swims. Dive depths up to 13.9 m were recorded, with dives ≥5 m being common. The considerable swimming and diving capacities of polar bears might provide them with tools to exploit aquatic environments previously not utilized.”

Compare the above statement to one made by Stirling and van Meurs (2015), after describing a 3 minute dive video-taped during an aquatic stalk of a bearded seal, also in the Svalbard area:

“…increased diving ability cannot evolve rapidly enough to compensate for the increasing difficulty of hunting seals because of the rapidly declining availability of sea ice during the open-water period resulting from climate warming.” [my bold]

These two papers really show the difference between using anecdotal accounts as if they were evidence of species-wide physical abilities and doing a scientific study on the physical ability of interest.

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Snow depth over spring sea ice affects polar bear feeding success and ringed seal survival

Snow depth over sea ice in spring affects the hunting success of polar bears on ringed seal (Phoca hispida) pups, but the relationship is more complicated than you might think and there is less data on this phenomenon than you would believe.

Ringed seal lair_snow and ice thickness_PolarBearScience_sm

Regional snow depth in spring (April-May) varies naturally from year to year due to weather patterns driven in part by long-term climate cycles (like the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the Arctic Oscillation).

This year, it was very cold in Eastern North America, with record-breaking snow fall in some areas. Snow depth was apparently greater than average over Hudson Bay sea ice this spring but was it deep enough to have impaired polar bear hunting success?

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