Every form of cellular life was created with specific traits and behaviors that enable it to thrive on our planet. For example, as global weather patterns affect climates across tropical, temperate, and polar regions, animals self-adjust in remarkable ways. Their wondrous capabilities are more than instinctive—they are engineered for adaptive flexibility across challenging environments.

Recently, a team of scientists analyzed genomic variation between polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from North-East Greenland (NEG) and South-East Greenland (SEG).¹ From 1958–2024, average temperatures across SEG were significantly higher than NEG.¹ In the southeastern bears, a particular group of transposable elements (TEs) was activated and expressed at higher levels.² These long interspersed nuclear elements (LINEs) include some of the most active TEs within the genomes of bears.¹ In fact, their expression showed a positive correlation with climate. Thus, higher temperatures correlated with higher cellular and chromosomal activity of TEs in bears. In simple terms, this evidence reveals that southeastern polar bears are self-adjusting to a warming climate.

But there is much more to this story. Conventional science continues to sound the alarm that “over two-thirds of polar bears” will be gone by 2050, followed by total extinction near the end of the twenty-first century.¹ The culprits? Global warming and loss of sea ice. Yet, polar bear populations are not only variable—their numbers are actually on the rise, with the most recent estimates of ~26,000 in 2015 that were projected to total ~39,000 in 2018.³ Accordingly, the bears are thriving as the top predator of dynamic polar food webs that contain a diversity of interdependent organisms.

Arctic ringed seal (Pusa hispida hispida)

With accelerated thawing of Arctic sea ice, more ocean is exposed to sunlight. More sunlight reaching open water leads to larger blooms of primary production (phytoplankton), which feeds more planktonic shrimp and fish along with a multitude of benthic invertebrates on the seafloor.³ In turn, abundant fish and invertebrates support seals and their pups—the primary food of polar bears. And healthier, well-fed bears thrive by swimming longer and farther for seals and growing populations of fish, birds, crabs, clams, and seaweed.⁴

For several decades, conventional scientists have warned us of inescapable climate disaster from a warming planet. They have not considered the true history—the biblical history—of the earth. Polar ice caps were not described in the pre-Flood world. Therefore, high-latitude ice (glaciers, landfast ice, and sea ice) may have only formed during the aftermath (Ice Age) of the global Flood (Genesis 6–8), and some of that ice remains in polar regions today. These remnants of a single Ice Age present a direct contrast to the estimated five major ice ages that supposedly occurred over 4.6 billion years of Earth history, as is promoted throughout academia today.⁵

Polar bears are flexible apex predators that inhabit the top of our planet. They are adapting to warmer temperatures and decreasing sea ice across the Arctic.⁶ This provides yet another example that supports ICR’s model of continuous environmental tracking (CET) where living creatures within a distinct ecosystem self-adjust to shifting environmental conditions. As expected, a magnificent diversity of polar life remains obedient to the original mandate: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and . . . multiply in the earth” (Genesis 1:22).

References

1. Godden, A. M., B. T. Rix, and S. Immler. 2025. Diverging Transposon Activity among Polar Bear Sub-Populations Inhabiting Different Climate Zones. Mobile DNA. 16, article 47.
2. TEs (transposable elements) are segments of DNA that can change their position within the genome of a cell. They act as mobile segments of DNA or RNA. They are involved in regulating the functions of genes and genomes.
3. Crockford, S. J. 2019. The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened. London, UK: Global Warming Policy Foundation.
4. Lone, K. et al. 2018. Aquatic Behaviour of Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) in an Increasingly Ice-Free Arctic. Scientific Reports. 8, article 9677.
5. Hebert, J. 2021. The Ice Age and Climate Change. Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research, 88.
6. Johnson, J. J. S. 2017. Polar Bears, Fitted to Fill and Flourish. Acts & Facts. 46 (8): 21.

* Dr. Boyle is a research scientist at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his Ph.D. in zoology from University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Stage image: Polar bear mother and cubs (Ursus maritimus)