So Long, Ontario Polar Bears

Hudson's Bay's changing dynamics mean the southernmost polar bear population could be gone by 2030, according to the field's leading expert.

One of the world's foremost experts on polar bears, the University of Alberta's Ian Stirling, foresees Ontario's polar bear population disappearing permanently within 20 to 30 years due to climate change. The shores of Hudson's Bay in northern Ontario mark the southernmost fringes of polar bear territory, but as Stirling tells the Toronto Star, increasing temperatures threaten to make it impossible for the bears hunt and live along the icy expanses of the bay in the winter. For the past 40 years or so, Arctic ice has disappeared by about 10 per cent each decade, meaning the ice floes that polar bears rely upon to hunt seals will soon disappear from southern Hudson's Bay. Some 1,600 polar bears call Ontario home today, but Stirling predicts that they'll all be gone by mid-century.