'Critical Habitat' for Polar Bears Is Firmed Up by U.S. - NYTimes.com

A population of about 1,586 animals roam the ice and shores of the Beaufort Sea in the United States and Canada, said Rosa Meehan, the chief of the service’s Marine Mammals Management Program in Alaska. That group “is a very well-studied” population, she said, and there are indications that it is declining as fewer cubs and young bears survive.

The statistics are not robust enough for biologists to declare that this group’s population decline is certain, however.

A second population moves between the United States and Russia, occupying a wide area of the Chukchi Sea. Ms. Meehan said that a lack of data makes that population “far more enigmatic,” although the best estimate is that it includes 2,000 to 3,000 bears. Most of those captured and collared “have been in very good condition,” she said. “They are really fat.”

The Reykjavik Grapevine - News from Iceland / Artists Set Sights on Iceland for Ambitious Project

A global art project will also have an Icelandic portion, with the aims of painting a giant red polar bear on a glacier, and photographing it from a helicopter.