How Daily Choices Keep Bears Safe Around the World
A Book of Bears is a lovely book for children. Learn about their likes and homes. Who is the best climber, and who is the fastest at catching fish?
There are eight species of wild bears on earth:
- American black bear: North America, mainly plants, insects, and some meat.
- Brown bear: Europe, Asia, North America, mixed diet (plants, fish, meat). Grizzly bears are North American brown bears.
- Polar bear: Arctic, mostly seals, strongly tied to sea ice.
- Giant panda: China, mainly bamboo, with occasional small animals.
- Sloth bear (India and Sri Lanka), mostly eat termites and ants.
- Spectacled (Andean) bear: Andes, mostly plants and fruit, some meat.
- Sun bear: South East Asia, insects, fruit, and honey.
- Asiatic black bear (moon bear): Asia, mixed diet, often forests and mountains.
How to help the world’s wild bears
Bears are not native to England, but there are lots of ways to help them:
- Help moon bears by never buying medicine with ‘bear bile’.
- Help polar bears by preventing climate change. Never visit zoos (polar bears have around 1 million times more space in the wild).
- Support the ongoing ban on trophy imports.
- Don’t support tourist spectacles like ‘dancing bears’ or animal circuses.
- Avoid palm oil (deforestation is harming local habitats).
If you live (or are camping) abroad, learn to live in harmony with wild bears. Get Bear Smart has lots of tips (and local chapters worldwide) and says the best ways to help are:
- Don’t leave food (including pet food) outside.
- Cook and eat away from your tent.
- Clean barbecues and drip trays after use.
- Pick ripe fruit quickly, and clear fallen fruit.
- Keep toothpaste and sun cream secure (can smell like food).
- Keep compost securely out of reach.
- Keep dogs on leads in bear country.
Animals Asia Clothing (helping to rescue moon bears)
If you want to make a simple difference to help moon bears used for the bile trade in Asia, buy a few organic cotton staples from the clothing shop at Animals Asia. This amazing charity (founded by a British woman) is helping not to just rescue bears stuck in cages for decades, but also to educate and help stop this awful trade for so-called ‘traditional medicine’.
Purchase of these organic staples (tees, sweatshirts and jogging bottoms) helps to fund their amazing work. All items are made from organic cotton, printed-on-demand here in England, and sent to you in zero waste plastic-free packaging. You can also send back items at end-of-life for recycling.
How to stop the bear bile trade
The best way is to never buy anything linked to ‘traditional medicine’ unless you get written guarantee that no animal parts (bile and also tiger bone and rhino horn ‘ are not used. Although this is illegal in England, not all companies are ethical.
Most of these so-called medicines are based on myth anyway. One expert says that using rhino horn could actually fuel cancer, not cure it.
Synthetic UDCA (ursodiol) is now being used in medicine to dissolve gallstones and treat chronic liver disease, the main substitute for bear bile, and researchers have also developed a synthetic alternative, without the use of any animal tissue.
How to help critically endangered polar bears
Melting ice (due to human-induced climate change – confirmed by 97% of climate scientists – the other 3% are funded by the oil industry) stops polar bears from hunting seals, their main source of food.
Polar bears must swim longer distances, or wander onto land where food is scarce and they come into contact with humans (polar bears are also at risk from hunting and oil/plastic pollution).
Climate scientists say that if current planet trends continue, the Arctic could see ice-free summers (a death sentence for polar bears, as they can’t adapt to life on land).
The main way to help is to protect and preserve the Arctic Circle, leaving it free from pollution from oil and drilling for oil. This is why Trump’s recent decision to ‘drill, drill, drill’ is at risk of sending these amazing creatures extinct.
- Use less oil (drive and fly less) and switch to green energy. Ecotricity is the only company that does not make green energy, from burning animal carcasses from abattoirs.
- Never visit zoos (polar bears have around 1 million times more space in the wild). There are plenty of wildlife ecologists helping to preserve natural habitats in their real homes.
- Use your vote. This is so important. Choosing politicians that stand up to the USA on policies like drilling for oil and gas (against advice of the Paris Climate Agreement) is what we need.
For humans, the Arctic is a harshly inhospitable place. But the conditions there are precisely what polar bears require to survive – and thrive. ‘Harsh’ to us, is ‘home’ for them.
Take away the ice and snow, increase the temperature by even a little, and the realm that makes their lives possible, literally melts away. Sylvia Earle
Aside from stopping Trump getting his hands on Greenland, there are more ways we can help critically endangered polar bears.
Sea ice is polar bears’ hunting ground
Picture trying to live off a supermarket that only opens a few months a year. That’s close to what’s happening to polar bears. Sea ice is their hunting ground, and they rely on it to catch seals. As the Arctic warms faster than the rest of the world, that ice forms later and breaks up sooner.
Please don’t let Trump buy Greenland
This is terrifying. Because if Trump were to annexe Greenland, he would undoubtedly open up this area to explore for oil, and this would likely be the extinction of polar bears.
With his approval ratings at an all-time low in the USA, it seems increasingly likely that he could be impeached, if (and likely) when the Republicans badly lose in the mid-term elections at the end of 2026.
Even former actor Scott Baio (who once hero-worshipped Trump) has done a U-turn after innocent people were shot dead by ICE officers in Minneapolis. Latest polls suggest that Trump is even less popular with over two-thirds of US voters than ants (we like ants!)
It’s widely expected that Gavin Newsome will run for the presidency in 2028 (and he will almost certainly win by a landslide given the unpopularity of vice-president JD Vance). So if we can wait that long, hopefully the polar bears will be safe.
