As polar bears across the Arctic watch their sea ice habitat disappear, here’s something they might be wishing for: A one-way ticket to Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

There, on a collection of rocky islands perched at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, polar bears are fatter than they were two decades ago, showing no signs of the distress hitting polar bear populations in parts of Canada and the U.S., scientists wrote last week in Scientific Reports.  

It’s a paradox that puzzles even researchers who have studied this population for decades. At first glance, the bears of Svalbard should be suffering the most. In the surrounding Barents Sea, temperatures have climbed faster and sea ice has disappeared more quickly than in the rest of the Arctic, making it a literal hotspot for climate change.

The Norwegian bears’ success illustrates both their adaptability and the way geography is, at least for the moment, shaping very different fates for a species often held up as a victim of global warming.

“What we see in Svalbard is still polar bears doing fine,” said Jon Aars, a polar bear ecologist with the Norwegian Polar Institute and an author of the new study.

There is little doubt that polar bears are in trouble in parts of the world, and that as sea ice continues to vanish from fast-warming northern latitudes, their plight will worsen. A recent study warned that if the world continues spewing greenhouse gases at the current rate, bears throughout the Arctic will be suffering by the middle of the century.

The crux of the problem is that sea ice is critical for bears to catch ringed seals, the cornerstone of their diet. The seals are most vulnerable to becoming bear meals in the spring, when they flop onto the ice to birth and nurse their pups, and in the summer when they warm themselves in the Arctic sun as they molt.

The loss of sea ice driven by climate change is one of the prime reasons why polar bears along the Beaufort Sea in Alaska were listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. It has also been linked to declining health and reproduction among bears in parts of eastern Canada’s Hudson Bay.

But when Norwegian scientists looked at 25 years of data from 770 polar bears captured and released around Svalbard, they saw something different. After dipping in the first five years, beginning in 2000 the body condition of bears started to improve for most of next 20 years. Mostly, that means they were putting on fat. Aars said over the course of those 2 decades, the improvement was equal to a 400-kilogram male putting on an extra 50 kilograms.

Why would polar bears be gaining weight as their key habitat disappears? Even Aars, who started studying the islands’ bears in 2003, is a bit puzzled.

“I still have a very hard time telling why they should be in better and better condition,” he said.

There are some clues. While the number of ringed seals are shrinking around Svalbard, scientists have found that the remaining animals are more bunched together on what’s left of the sea ice, potentially making them easier targets for hungry bears.

The bears might also be dining on a larger variety of creatures. While other marine mammals such as walrus and harbor seals aren’t at the top of a polar bear’s menu, their numbers have increased in the Barents Sea in recent years, making them possible sources of calories.

There are also signs that bears have developed more of a taste for land animals. The bears have been seen chasing down reindeer on the islands and scientists have documented their increasing appetite for bird eggs. Analysis of isotopes in blood samples taken from bears confirms that their diet is shifting toward more terrestrial food sources, said Aars.

It’s also possible that bear numbers had been so depleted by hunting before the 1970s, that the population still hasn’t run up against the limits of the food supply, even if that food supply is shrinking.

Whatever the reasons, the Svalbard case illustrates how the current story of polar bears isn’t simply one of decline, said Evan Richardson, a polar bear ecologist at the Canadian federal agency Environment and Climate Canada. “There’s three classic responses of species to climate change. You can move to where habitat conditions are good. You can adapt to local conditions. Or the other alternative is to die. This is one study that suggests that adaptation might be occurring.”

Svalbard’s bears aren’t the only ones faring relatively well for now. In the Chukchi Sea, which straddles northwest Alaska and the eastern tip of Russia, polar bears aren’t showing signs of distress yet, something scientist attribute to the biological richness of the broad, shallow expanse of the continental shelf there.

But Aars warns that it’s only a matter of time before even Svalbard is no longer a polar bear oasis. He expects shrinking ice will eventually outrun the bears’ resourcefulness. “You don’t find polar bears anywhere where you don’t have significant sea ice any part of the year,” said Aars. “We think that there will be just a question of time when we will see negative effects as well.”

Aars, et. al. “Body condition among Svalbard Polar bears Ursus maritimus during a period of rapid loss of sea ice.” Scientific Reports. Jan. 29, 2026.

Photo: Getty Images for Unsplash+