Figure 8. Aerial view of Polar Bear Provincial Park. Photography: L.R. Walton
Habitat protection
The government of Ontario established Polar Bear Provincial Park along the southern Hudson Bay coast in 1970 (Figures 2 and 8). This large wilderness-class park (about 2.4 million hectares) plays a significant role in protecting Ontario’s polar bear habitat. A high proportion of Ontario’s bears use this park during the ice-free season and about one-third of all maternity dens in Ontario are found in the park.
In addition to Polar Bear Provincial Park, the government of Ontario has committed to work with First Nation and northern communities, natural resource industries, and scientists to map and permanently protect an interconnected network of conservation lands across Ontario’s Far North. A broad framework for this plan will be completed in 2009 and protection of more than 225,000 square kilometres of the northern boreal region will be completed in the next 10 to15 years.
Harvest management
The governments of Ontario, Nunavut, and Quebec and their respective Aboriginal communities are responsible for the sustainable management of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation of polar bears. In Nunavut, the territorial government has a co-management agreement with the Sanikiluaq hunter and trapper organization to monitor and manage the harvest of bears from this subpopulation. In Quebec, Aboriginal communities harvest polar bears for subsistence under the James Bay agreement. They participate in the cooperative monitoring and management of polar bear harvests, keeping harvests at levels that respect the terms of the agreement.
In Ontario, only First Nation hunters who are Treaty 9 members residing along the Hudson Bay and James Bay coast can legally harvest polar bears. Ontario reached an informal agreement on polar bear harvest quotas in 1976 with the Aboriginal communities of Fort Severn, Winisk (now Peawanuck), Attawapiskat, Fort Albany and Kashechewan. Research and monitoring conducted since reaching this informal agreement has revealed that bears from this subpopulation are also harvested in Nunavut and Quebec. If these informal quotas (30 bears per year in Ontario) were ever reached, they would likely be considered too high, in conjunction with harvests in Nunavut and Quebec, for the long-term sustainability of this subpopulation. However, annual minimum harvest levels in Ontario are well below the informal quotas. Since the 1990s, an average of eight bears per year have been harvested. This is less than half the number that were harvested annually in the 1970s and 1980s. Further, Ontario, Nunavut, and Quebec continue to share the latest information and science to sustainably manage this shared sub-population of polar bears.
Status designation
The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources lists polar bears as a species of “special concern” provincially under the Endangered Species Act. They are also listed as a species of “special concern” nationally by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). This status designation means polar bears are recognized as having characteristics that make them particularly sensitive to human activities (such as climate change) or natural events that may cause them to become threatened or endangered.
The status of polar bear populations in Canada was reassessed in May 2008. The updated COSEWIC status report incorporates more community and Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge about polar bears. Elsewhere, in May 2008, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service listed polar bears as “threatened” under the United States Endangered Species Act. Globally, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the polar bear as “vulnerable” in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Research
The Ministry of Natural Resources and external partners have been proactive and innovative in continuing research to:
- better define the distribution and movements of polar bears of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation through radio-telemetry and genetic techniques;
- estimate and monitor polar bear numbers through live-capture techniques;
- assess the health of the bears by taking body measurements of live-captured bears and testing body tissues for contaminants;
- determine and describe important polar bear habitat, including denning and breeding areas, through airplane and helicopter surveys and radiotelemetry techniques; and
- determine the significance of protected areas (Polar Bear Provincial Park) to the conservation of polar bears through airplane and helicopter surveys and radio-telemetry techniques.
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