Churchill Northern Studies Centre using $83K grant to improve polar-bear research

The Churchill Nothern Studies Centre is hoping to make polar bear research easier with an $83,000 grant from Canadian Polar Bear Habitat, a charity, which the centre is using to buy buses to take researchers and visitors into the field.

“We’re located 23 kilometres out of town,” executive director Dylan McCart said. “So in order to transport into town or transport into field sites, these 24-passenger busses are going to change our world.”

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Additionally, McCart said research about the subarctic is needed as the town, environment and the bears suffer under the effects of climate change.

“This year, we’ve had some of our record high temperatures and we had a much earlier melt than normal.” he said. “Just recently in 2021, we had an estimated polar bear population in the Western Hudson Bay that has declined quite a bit. So, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the bears are doing great right now.”

The bears have become an indicator of what’s happening across ecosystems everywhere, according to Canadian Polar Bear Habitat spokesperson JP Bradette.

“It’s a little bit of the canary in the coal mine, if I can use that analogy. Trying to understand how the impacts of climate change are affecting these species, and what that might mean for other species in the ecosystem.”

McCart said the centre wants to keep pushing research forward so they can better understand what’s at stake.

“We have a better understanding of how… bears are going to be impacted by climate change, specifically with their main source of food, which is seals,” he said. “I think we have a better understanding, but it’s going to take a lot of human action to prevent more negative impacts from climate change.”