Description

U.S. Research Presentation Summary

Speaker: Todd Atwood, Polar Bear Research Program Lead, U.S. Geological Survey

This presentation summarizes the United States' collaborative polar bear research efforts in the Southern Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea regions from 2023 to 2025. The research, conducted by multiple organizations, covers several key areas: population dynamics, spatial ecology, habitat mapping, methods development, and hazards assessment.

We describe how research findings are applied to sustainably manage polar bear populations while balancing the economic development of Alaska’s Arctic Coastal Plain. Collectively, this work has improved our understanding of the status and health of the Southern Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea populations. These efforts, which include those carried out jointly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Alaska Nannut Co-Management Council (ANCC), the Service’s Alaska Native co-management partner, reflect a continued commitment to conserving polar bears while supporting the subsistence needs and cultural well-being of Indigenous communities across Alaska’s Arctic coast.