From Fierce to Adorable: Representations of Polar Bears in the Popular Imagination

From the late 1950s to the early 1980s, technology in the form of aircraft, high-powered rifles, and tranquilizers changed the relationship between humans and polar bears. Whereas the polar bear had been conceptualized as a fierce beast in early-modern expeditionary literature, in the second half of the twentieth century the bear was depicted as vulnerable due to overhunting and in need of scientific study, a process that in itself portrayed the helplessness of the animal when confronted with postwar technologies. Popular American and Canadian periodicals conveyed this shift in the bear’s image. This article examines the polar bear’s image as depicted by the media and argues that the use of certain technologies by sport hunters, wildlife biologists, and conservationists enabled a domination of the bear that altered the animal’s placement within the popular imagination.