This footage of baby polar bears emerging from their dens isn't just rare – it's playing a crucial role in research too

The remote locations of polar bear dens makes footage of the bears emerging from hibernation rare – but a research project spanning nearly ten years is offering an in-depth look at how and when the vulnerable species leave the dens. Researchers in Norway have recently shared timelapse footage of the bears emerging from their dens, along with insight on how remote cameras can help build existing information on the species.

Researchers from Polar Bears International, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the Norwegian Polar Bear Institute, and the University of Toronto Scarborough recently shared footage and research from nearly a decade of remote camera research, published in the Journal of Wildlife Management earlier this week. The researchers are calling the footage the first in-depth look at how the bears emerge from hibernation.

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Thanks to remote time-lapse cameras in custom housing built for the winter conditions in Svalbard, Norway, researchers were able to observe mother polar bears and their cubs emerging from hibernation. The project is the first time that scientists have combined satellite tracking collars with remote camera traps to research denning habits.

In the spring – typically around late February – the research team identifies denning locations using satellite collars. Little footage on polar bears emerging from their dens exists because of the remote locations the bears tend to hibernate in. The team typically spends the last kilometer traveling to the site on skis or on foot.

Behind-the-scenes video shows the team preparing a camera inside a customized rugged hard case, where the camera is attached to multiple large batteries. Additional trail cameras are also used as part of the setup. Once the cameras are set, the researchers leave the area and wait for the cameras to potentially spot the bears emerging from the dens.

So far, the team has used footage from 2016 to 2020, as well as data from 2023, to study the polar bears. The team is currently in the area for the 2025 den research season.

By pairing the camera footage with data from the tracking collars, the team noted a number of key findings. In the Svalbard area, the bears tend to emerge around March 9, but the latest data shows the bears emerging earlier than expected. The team noted that additional research needs to be done to determine if the earlier emergence is an anomaly or a changing trend.

The researchers noted that sometimes the bears come out for less than a minute, while on other occasions the bears stay out for hours. On average, the mother bears tended to let their cubs acclimate to the outside for an average of 12 days before leaving the den for the season. But, some families left as early as two days and others as late as 31 days.

Polar bears are born in the winter and spend their first several weeks of life in the den with their mother. Researchers note that less than half of the cubs will survive until adulthood, with the bears’ emergence from the den and acclimation to the outside world playing a critical role.

Researchers are also using the footage to try to predict what the bears are doing based on the collar data alone, as the harsh conditions and battery requirements make cameras more challenging to use than the GPS collars that can record factors like location, temperature and activity for up to two years.

“Studies including observational data at polar bear den sites have been few, and this study thus contributes significantly to our knowledge about denning ecology,” Dr. Jon Aars, Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Polar Institute, said in a statement. “Further, as the data from satellite radio collars were available for all the mothers, the observational data made it possible to tell how changes in activity and temperature recorded correspond with behavior. This is of great value as a lot of data from collared females that have been in a maternity den is available.”

The full research is available to read from the Journal of Wildlife Management.

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