East Greenland (EG)

Status table outtake

Table comment: No subpopulation inventories have been conducted. During the last decades the extent of sea ice has decreased. This decline is likely to continue resulting in continued habitat decline. Various studies indicate that these bears are negatively affected by relatively high body burden of organic pollutants.

Although various studies have indicated that more or less resident groups of bears may occur within the range of polar bears in East Greenland (EG; Born 1995a, Dietz et al. 2000, Sandell et al. 2001), the EG polar bears are thought to constitute a single subpopulation with only limited exchange with other subpopulations (Wiig 1995, Born et al. 2009b). Satellite-telemetry has indicated that polar bears range widely along the coast of eastern Greenland and in the pack ice in the Greenland Sea and Fram Strait (Born et al. 1997, 2009b, Wiig et al. 2003; see Research in Greenland, this volume). Although there is little evidence of genetic difference between subpopulations in the eastern Greenland and Svalbard-Franz Josef Land regions (Paetkau et al. 1999), satellite telemetry and movement of marked animals indicate that the exchange between EG and the Barents Sea subpopulation is minimal (Wiig 1995, Born et al. 1997, 2009b, Wiig et al. 2003). No inventories have been conducted in recent years to determine the size of the polar bear subpopulation in eastern Greenland.