An adult polar bear jumping across a gap between ice floes. Polar bears are suprisingly agile and also very strong swimmers, they are able to negotiate the mixed terrain of solid sea ice and broken floes of ice, occasionally swimming from one floe to the next. In completely open water, or in an environment free of sea ice, however, polar bears cannot survive for very long; they are entirely dependent on sea ice from which to hunt from. This bear is a member of the Barents Sea/ Svalbard population which is doing comparatively well. Though other polar bear populations in the Arctic are becoming severely affected by the loss of sea ice in the Arctic.