Why Russia’s war in Ukraine is bad news for polar bears, too

The invasion is first and foremost a human tragedy but it is also dire for wildlife, stalling scientific work on the bears and other species threatened with extinction, writes Dino Grandoni

A polar bear in the Russian Arctic close to Franz Josef Land (Getty)

For three years, Eric Regehr travelled more than 2,000 miles to what he calls “the end of the world”.

Not even the coronavirus pandemic stopped the University of Washington biologist’s research on Wrangel Island, high above the Arctic Circle in Russia. When the pandemic grounded Regehr in 2020, his Russian colleagues continued monitoring the remote island’s polar bears, a carnivore many fear may decline as the world warms.

But after President Vladimir Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine early last year, Regehr’s research in Russia stalled. “It’s bad timing,” Regehr says, “because things are changing fast.”