Canada's Western Hudson Bay polar bear population has fallen 27% in just five years, according to a government report released this week, suggesting climate change is affecting the animals."What's really sobering is that these kinds of declines are the kind that unless sea ice loss is halted, are predicted to eventually cause ...Scientists cautioned that a direct link between the population decline and sea ice loss in Hudson Bay wasn't yet clear, as four of the past five years have seen moderately good ice conditions.What's driven the decline is a reduced number of juvenile bears and adult females," said Stephen Atkinson, an independent wildlife biologist who led the research on behalf of the government.A 2021 study in the journal Nature Climate Change found most of the world's polar bear populations are on track to collapse by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions aren't heavily curbed."