Polar Bears International (PBI) is a non-profit polar bear conservation organization registered in the U.S. and Canada. It is a science-based charity whose research, education, and advocacy programs address the issues that are endangering polar bears. While Churchill, Canada, serves as an important hub for its scientists and educators, the organization's work on behalf of polar bears spans the circumpolar Arctic, including Svalbard (Norway), Russia, Alaska (U.S.), and other parts of Canada. Polar Bears International is known for its research efforts that inform conservation, with a team that includes polar bear and climate scientists on its staff and scientific advisory board. Its chief scientist emeritus is Steven Amstrup, winner of the 2012 Indianapolis Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of animal conservation. Prior to joining PBI's staff in 2010, Amstrup spearheaded the USGS team whose series of reports led to the polar bear listing as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. To raise awareness and drive positive change, Polar Bears International offers a number of education and outreach programs. It also organizes various awareness events such as International Polar Bear Day (February 27), Arctic Sea Ice Day (July 15), and Polar Bear Week (the first week of November). These initiatives highlight the importance of preserving polar bears and the Arctic ecosystem. Polar Bears International was founded in 1992 by a group of wildlife enthusiasts who traveled to Churchill, Canada, every year to watch and photograph polar bears. It has been led by Krista Wright since 2013.
Conservation Challenges
Polar bears are marine mammals, built to live on top of the frozen ocean. They hunt seals from the surface of the sea ice, and also rely on the ice to travel, hunt, breed and sometimes den. As climate change warms the planet, Arctic sea ice has been melting at a rate of 12.2% per decade, reducing the polar bears’ access to their seal prey and affecting their survival. Scientists predict that without action on climate change, we will lose most of the world’s polar bears by the end of the century. Some polar bear populations in areas with longer ice-free seasons have already declined. The Western Hudson Bay population, for example, is roughly half of what it was in the 1980s, and the Southern Beaufort Sea population has declined by about 40 percent. Other threats to polar bears include poorly regulated hunting; disturbances from human activity, especially during the denning period; conflicts with people; and pollution. Polar Bears International works to address both the long- and short-term challenges that polar bears face.
Activities Research - Working with partners, Polar Bears International conducts and/or helps fund studies that add to our understanding of polar bears and impact their conservation. This work ranges from research on polar bear moms and cubs at den sites, to insights on the polar bears’ energy use to developing new technology, such as “burr on fur” tracking tags and “bear-dar” radar systems designed to warn communities of approaching bears. PBI scientists also address climate change. Key climate-related papers include a 2020 study, published in Nature Climate Change, that answered the critical question of when polar bear subpopulations will disappear based on three different greenhouse gas scenarios. Another, published in Science in 2023, addressed a loophole in the Endangered Species Act, paving the way to allow ESA evaluations to include the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from proposed projects on polar bears. A third, published in Nature Communications in 2024, showed that Churchill’s polar bears could disappear as early as the 2030s if nations failed to meet the targets set in the Paris Climate Agreement. In 2025, a paper in Nature Communications explored perspectives on polar bears from Indigenous people in Churchill.
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