Photograph of the week: Polar bear in Svalbard

Polar bears, unlike their brown bear cousins, are active year-round, though they will often fast through the Summer months when restricted to land by the melting ice shelf. During the height of their feeding season an adult male bear can weigh up to 700kgs and measure up to 3 metres in length, making them the largest living species of land predator. Here a polar bear leaps across the ice floes in the Svalbard archipelago, north of Norway. Although they are powerful swimmers, they prefer to stay dry and travel across the ice wherever possible.