The number of polar bears around Churchill MB has been on steady decline from about 1200 bears in the 1980’s to about 800 bears nowadays - one significant factor in their survival is access to sea ice (and tasty tasty seals).
In the summer and fall, the polar bears hang around shore waiting for the ice to freeze so they can go hunt seals - they store up that fat to make them through the next fasting cycle - it’s this fasting period that it getting longer, from 107 days back in the 1980s to 130 in the early 2000’s up to 151 days (just recorded this year). Models suggest that 180 days off ice is a tipping point where bears don’t have enough time to fatten. Hungry bears are dangerous bears, and so the town of Churchill has a bear jail which houses up to 26 bears at a time:
They used to feed the bears in jail, but that made them want to come back, and so now they only feed the bears ice & snow. The bears are kept no longer than a month (2 weeks is desired) and released a few hundred klicks north of town.
It’s a rough life doing time in bear jail.