Northwest Territories

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Northwest Territories; Hudson Bay; Baffin Island; Canadian Arctic Archipelago; Canada; Hudson; Midwinter; Southampton Island; Simpson Peninsula; Arctic Archipelago; Baffin; Ursus maritimus
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.549.888; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic37-2-169.pdf

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) give birth during midwinter in maternity dens dug into snowdrifts (Harington, 1968). The protection provided by the den ensures maturation of the cubs until they are sufficiently developed to follow their mothers. Since denning is necessary for polar bear reproduction, man-agement agencies have spent considerable time searching for and then protecting maternity denning areas. This is par-ticularly important in Canada because of the potentially dis-ruptive industrial developments proposed within polar bear denning areas. In Canada, important denning areas have been found along the western shore of Hudson Bay (Jonkel et al., 1972). on the Simpson Peninsula, on southeast Baffin Island (Jonkel et af., 1978), and on Southampton Island (Harington, 1968). How-ever, in most places in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago