Status and Populations
Photo: Daniel J. Cox / Natural Exposures
An iceberg off the mountainous coastline of Greenland

East Greenland Polar Bears

Polar bears in East Greenland live in a part of the Arctic that boasts very little human presence and the largest national park in the world. However, they also have the highest recorded levels of contaminants of any polar bear population, and are also experiencing changes to their habitat due to warming.

Numbers

2,275 (as of 2026)

This region is difficult to access, with very little infrastructure. Only a handful of settlements are found along the eastern coast, in two main areas. As a result, researchers led by Kristin Laidre of the University of Washington have only recently (early 2026) completed the first assessment of the population – an endeavor that encompassed 12 years of research and 200 hours of flying.

Status

Update expected in 2026 following the publication of a new population estimate.

Range

East Greenland polar bears use the annual and multiyear landfast ice on the coast of northern and central East Greenland, as well as the floating annual pack ice on the Greenland Sea and Fram Strait. They are found along the eastern coast from approximately 64 degrees North to 82 degrees North, and from the coast to approximately 120 miles (200 km) offshore.

The East Greenland subpopulation is one of three in the Convergent Ice Ecoregion, where ice transported from other areas of the Arctic, along with locally formed sea ice, collects along the shore. Historically, the collection of ice along coastlines provides polar bears with access to seals over productive waters throughout the summer, enabling those bears to remain on the sea ice most of the year.

Polar bear on melting ice floes next to an iceberg in Greenland
Photo: NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland mission

What makes this population special

Wide variety of ranges

Bears in this population employ a mix of strategies in terms of the habitat they seek out. Whereas some bears remain coastal for much of the year, others may occupy very large home ranges that see them wander more than 600 miles (1,000) km over the course of the year. A 1997 study showed that collared female bears stayed within a relatively small area off the northeast coast, while a separate study found some bears spent almost all their time on the offshore pack ice in the Greenland Sea and had very large home ranges of between 96,000 and 180,000 square miles (242,000 and 468,000 square kilometers). Some bears drift northward into the Arctic Basin region on thick, multiyear ice during fall and winter, before returning south to take advantage of productive, more broken ice over the continental shelf in spring.

Some bears den at the base of icebergs

Pregnant females enter maternity dens by late October or early November, and give birth in late December or early January. Many dens are concentrated in the northeast, between approximately 78 and 81 N. Whereas most dens are built on land, researchers discovered in 2019 that at least some bears den in snowdrifts at the base of icebergs that have become grounded and/or frozen into fast ice. This is the only part of polar bears’ range where this has been documented.

Conservation Concerns

An Executive Order on the Protection and Hunting of Polar Bears regulates the subsistence hunt of bears in Greenland, limiting the harvest to single adult polar bears, and prohibiting trophy hunting and the export of polar bear products. Laws on environmental protection and animal welfare also apply to the management of polar bears. The Northeast Greenland National Park, the world’s largest, covers an area of 375,000 square miles (972,000 square kilometers) and strictly limits access and activity in the area.

Contaminants

Polar bears in East Greenland have been recorded as containing the highest levels of persistent organic pollutants of any polar bear population. Studies have shown high concentrations of such chemicals as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), all of which have historically been widely used in industrial activities and are known as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment.

Although production and use of many of these chemicals have been outlawed or restricted in Europe and North America, their persistence and the fact that they continued to be used widely in China until recently means that their presence continues to be recorded in polar bears in the region. Studies have suggested that these chemicals may reduce bone density and body size, may reduce reproductive success, and may disrupt endocrine and immune systems. There are at present few concrete indicators, but research is ongoing.

A 2013 study found a shift in the diet of polar bears in East Greenland, away from Arctic, sea ice dependent species such as ringed seals and toward subarctic, more open-water species such as harp and hooded seals. Because subarctic seals tend to have higher concentrations of pollutants in their system than do Arctic seals, this shift may have increased Greenland bears’ contaminant loads.

Increased conflict with people

Some communities in Greenland have been reporting increased sightings of and encounters with polar bears, and the last several years have seen a few instances of bear attacks. In August 2021, a bear thrust its head through a window and seized a researcher in its jaws before being driven away; in July 2024, two bears were shot in the settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit after repeatedly entering the community and threatening residents; that same month, another bear was shot after attacking a man on Traill Island.

The increased presence of polar bears on land and near communities is likely associated with sea ice declines forcing them ashore. Sea ice in the Greenland Sea has undergone a significant decrease in extent, with 2021 in particular seeing levels of summer sea ice 72 percent below average. Sea ice retreat in spring is occurring approximately six days earlier per decade and fall formation is on average seven days later. This has resulted in satellite-tagged polar bears in the 2000s being observed in areas with significantly lower sea ice concentrations than in the 1990s, and spending two months longer each year in areas of less than 60 percent sea ice coverage.