Photo: Kt Miller / Polar Bears International

Male polar bear with long foreleg guard hairs walking on ice.

Polar Bear Attacks and Causes

Understanding the causes of polar bear attacks on people is critical to ensuring both human safety and polar bear conservation.

Why it Matters

As the Arctic warms, and more polar bears in poor body condition spend more time on shore, in close proximity to people, attacks are expected to increase. Careful planning now can help communities adapt.

As part of his participation in the Polar Bear Range States Conflict Working Group, our senior director of conservation, Geoff York, contributed to a comprehensive study on the frequency and causes of polar bear attacks. The study, led by Dr. James Wilder of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with co-authors from the Range States Conflict Working Group, collected, researched, and analyzed published accounts of polar bear attacks on humans in the time period from 1870 to 2014.

The Impact

The findings added greatly to our understanding of why polar bears attack people. The report’s authors found that “nutritionally stressed adult male polar bears were the most likely to pose threats to human safety” with 61 percent of bears that attacked humans in below-average body condition.

Project Partners

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Polar Bear Range States Conflict Working Group, composed of members from the five polar bear “range states”: Canada, Greenland, Norway (Svalbard), Russia, and the U.S.