Tag Archives: polar bears

Our first polar bear

16 August, 2013From the field, Polar bearslaptev sea, polar bearsuser

Polar bear mother with cubs, Laptev Sea, Russia. © Alexey Ebel / WWF-Canon

A WWF-led research team, a Canon photographer, and crew are traveling to Siberia’s Arctic coast on the Laptev Sea, to help solve a scientific mystery. The Laptev Linkages expedition is sponsored by Canon.
Mikhail wakes up just after midnight. The crew has spotted our first polar bear, and it’s a family group! The quiet, sleepy cabin bursts into a frenzy of activity as layers are added and binoculars readied.
We are just passing along Little Begichev Island at the edge of the Laptev Sea. While it’s just past midnight, it’s still quite light outside. We watch as the sow and her two yearlings amble along the shoreline. At first, they appear to be moving quickly, though we don’t see any other bears. We are a good 100 meters off the beach and in a slow moving and quiet boat, so it seems unlikely that we have bothered her, but if she is unused to human activity, it’s possible.
For the crew of the boat and several of our team, It’s their first bear. Mikhail, Anatoly, Tom, and I immediately look for signs of other mammals in the area (bears, walrus, possible carcass) and try to assess their body conditions. The distance and lighting challenge our binoculars, so we are glad to have high-resolution imagery from the DSLR to refer back to later and confirm our assessment.
The sow appears to be in relatively poor condition and we agree she’s between a 2-2.5 on a 5-point body condition index. The cubs look to be in great shape for their age- a real testament to their mum. Unfortunately, she’ll need some luck on her side to successfully rear these two beyond the summer. Little Begichev is small and appears to offer little in the way of useful food. It’s also a fair swim to Big Begichev Island, where there are a few more options, including reindeer and muskoxen. Big Begichev is also known to be used by walruses in the summer and has more beach area to catch the odd carcass. We wish the bear the best as we motor northward.
Around half past three we run into heavy fog and drop anchor for a few hours adjacent to the large island. Sleep is short and fitful as may of us want to make sure and see everything we might pass- from the smallest of birds to the possibility of whales!

To the airport, to the Laptev

12 August, 2013From the fieldlaptev sea, polar bears, walrususer

Geoff York, polar bear specialist with WWF, heads to the airport to begin the journey to Siberia. Photo: Tom Arnbom / WWF

We have now all gathered in Moscow and are on our the way to Krasnoyarsk, where we will change flights to the Arctic. We can not wait until we arrive — it is a dream for several of us to visit this area.
The Laptev Sea walrus question has been in the air for more than fifty years among scientists. Do they belong to a special subspecies or not? All anecdotal information is at least 25 years old. However, we managed to identify a polar bear through a satellite image from the area. A white spot close to where the walruses should be. As a birder, any observation has to be noted – after all, almost nothing is known of this region. The only thing we have been warned about are the mosquitoes!
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Good fences make good polar bear neighbours

9 August, 2013From the field, Polar bearsconflict, laptev sea, polar bearsuser

Polar bears approach an electric fence near the Hamlet of Arviat, Nunavut, Canada. © Hamlet of Arviat

There’s an electric fence in WWF’s Ottawa office, and a motion detector’s siren blares at the first unlucky staffer to walk through the kitchen. We’re not under siege or playing jokes on each other (well, maybe a little). This setup is being tested for a more serious purpose — keeping researchers safe in polar bear country.
Next week, A WWF-led research team, a Canon photographer, and crew will travel to Siberia’s Arctic coast on the Laptev Sea, to help solve a scientific mystery. Are the Laptev’s polar bears and walruses related to populations to the east and west? The answer to this mystery may have implications for the management of the entire region.
Arctic beaches are the most practical place for our research camp, but they’re also a polar bear pathway. Coexisting with these large predators is risky, and we’ll be sleeping in tents, not buildings.
So what’s in our safety bag?

Experience: Several of the team are used to working in bear country and will make sure the campsite is well situated and plans are in place if bears come near.
Eyes and ears: The best bet in bear country is to stay alert for potential trouble and take early action. That’s why we’ll take turns on watch, day and night.
4 small motion/heat detectors: To alert sleeping campers, or scare curious animals away from our gear. Because its range is limited, it’s most suitable for small spaces.
Trip wire: A small physical barrier around the perimeter of our camp, which sets off an audible alarm if broken.
Electric fence: The final physical barrier. It’s not connected to an alarm, but it will give a quick, strong, but harmless shock if a bear makes it past the other devices and gets too close to our sleeping tents.
Ideally, we would also have individual canisters of bear spray (pepper spray), but it’s just not available in remote Russia and challenging to ship.

If all goes well, we will spot and scare the bears away before they get close enough to trigger the alarm.

Download the polar bear alarm (and set it as a ringtone…?)
Although we’ll be sharing space with polar bears for just two weeks, many people in the Arctic have adapted to living with the bears year-round. Learn how communities coexist with their polar bear neighbours here.

Looking for meaning in a dead bear

9 August, 2013General, Polar bearspolar bearsuser

When we were approached by a photographer, wondering if we wanted to comment on a dead polar bear that he thought had starved, we were torn. We realize the power that an image like that can command, how it can move people. On the other hand, WWF is an organization that prides itself on being guided by science. Could we make a scientifically defensible, but still compelling comment on this image of a dead bear?
We do believe that bears are likely to be in trouble in the coming years. As the sea ice retreats (as pretty well all climate and ice modelers agree it will) the bears’ preferred hunting grounds will shrink in time and space. It does not mean all the bears will starve. Some individuals may starve, others may move, others still may even find ways to adapt and survive through longer periods when the sea ice is absent. Current studies from Hudson Bay indicate that the longer the bears are off the ice, the worse their condition is likely to be, and they will likely have lower rates of reproduction and cub survival.
Having said all that, we could not take the death of this one individual as evidence that he had died from climate-induced starvation. The circumstantial evidence was there – lack of ice in the area the body was found in the months preceding the find. But the bear was old – reportedly 16 years old. Many bears do not survive that long in the wild. Any number of factors may have led to this bear’s death. Without that information, without a “smoking climate gun”, we could not make claims that may not be scientifically defensible.

Svalbard polar bear research: Day 5

13 June, 2013From the field, Polar bearspolar bears, species tracker, svalbarduser

Jon Aars is a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway’s main institution for research, environmental monitoring and mapping of the polar regions. With the support of WWF, Aars studies polar bear populations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Read all of his field notes from a Spring 2013 research expedition, and follow the bears on our Polar Bear Tracker.

29 April – We left KV Svalbard a week ago, and have not been out flying for eight days because of bad weather. That is how it works in the Arctic, low pressure systems can bring bad weather for periods of days, and helicopter flying is risky if conditions are not good. With white snow, and moderate sun light, it is hard to see the contrasts on the snow and easy to crash a helicopter flying close to the ground. Darting bears, we fly on only a few meters altitude.
But today, when the weather suddenly improved, we flew to Storfjorden, between the largest islands in Svalbard. This is core polar bear habitat, and we were efficient working from early morning to late night. All together we handled 11 bears, a number we rarely reach in one day of work. It feels good to get that much done after a long period without being able to work, particularly as tomorrow will be our last field day this spring.
Among the bears we captured were two old females on 21 and 24 years of age, the former with a cub of the year and the latter with a yearling. Females this old more often have one cub than two, age having taken its toll. We also captured two different two-year-old bears. They will just have departed from their mothers and will have a challenging time ahead, when they have to learn to hunt on their own. One of them had managed to kill a ringed seal pup, that is at least a good breakfast.

Svalbard polar bear research: Day 4

13 June, 2013From the field, Polar bearspolar bears, species tracker, svalbarduser

Svalbard polar bear research: Day 3

11 June, 2013From the field, Polar bearspolar bears, species tracker, svalbarduser

Jon Aars is a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway’s main institution for research, environmental monitoring and mapping of the polar regions. With the support of WWF, Aars studies polar bear populations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Read all of his field notes from a Spring 2013 research expedition, and follow the bears on our Polar Bear Tracker.

10th April – Today we had a good day in field, with six bears handled. We flew quite far, to Edgeøya at the south-eastern part of Svalbard. Hunters who shot bears for hides many decades ago frequently stayed here over the winter, as many bears pass through the area.
In the morning we found fresh tracks from a female with two cubs, but lost them when the snow got so hard the prints were not longer visible. We started to get a bit low on fuel, but fortunately had a depot on the island where we could refuel and thus continue the search on the east side of the island.
In front of one of the big glaciers we again encountered tracks, this time from a pair of mating bears. April is mating season. Tracks from bears mating are quite distinctive, frequently with parallel tracks with a lot of sharp turns and no particular direction. We found the bears after some effort, and darted them. She was a recapture, marked last year, about six years old.
Later we found a polar bear maternity den, occupied by a visiting adult male, and likely already departed by the family. He also turned out to be a known bear, marked in 2008, now close to 15 years old. We then searched for a female with two small cubs out in some very structured sea ice, making it quite challenging to follow the tracks. But finally we found them, a young female with her first litter, two small cubs about weighing about 8 kilos. Back on the boat we finally got a deserved meal after a long day. When it’s below -20°C and windy all day, then a warm meal is always good to warm up.

Svalbard polar bear research: Day 2

11 June, 2013From the field, Polar bearspolar bears, species tracker, svalbarduser

The two sons of a female we captured today, back in 2007, in the same area. One of the two cubs of the pictures was killed in self defence when it tried to get into a cabin with two persons a few days ago. Svalbard, Norway, April 2013 © Jon Aars / NPI

Yesterday we entered the Norwegian coast guard ship KV Svalbard, our home for the next couple of weeks. It is a great ship, and with a highly service-minded crew. Besides patrolling the areas around Svalbard to check that fishing boats follow the rules, they frequently help teams doing research in the area.
We planned to sail north, until we checked the weather forecast – snow and wind in that part of the archipelago. So we sailed south during the night, and surveyed Hornsund, the most southern fjord on the Spitsbergen west coast, today.
In the inner part, in front of the glaciers, we encountered tracks from two different adult females, with one and two small cubs respectively. However, we did not find the bears. But after some more searching, we found a single adult female, a twelve year old that was marked in Hornsund as a cub in 2001. We captured her in 2007 with two sons, her first litter. One of them was killed in self defense in a cabin a bit further west some days ago, when he tried to get into a cabin with two people. The female got a collar, and we located an adult male in the same area after a few minutes of flying. He was a large animal in his prime age, about 10 years old.

Svalbard polar bear research: Day 1

10 June, 2013From the field, Polar bearspolar bears, species tracker, svalbarduser

The foot of a polar bear, note the short and very sharp claws. Svalbard, Norway, April 2013

Jon Aars is a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway’s main institution for research, environmental monitoring and mapping of the polar regions. With the support of WWF, Aars studies polar bear populations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Read all of his field notes from a Spring 2013 research expedition, and follow the bears on our Polar Bear Tracker.
6th April – We were out for a short trip yesterday in Isfjorden, the fjord where Longyearbyen, the main settlement in Svalbard, is located. We did not encounter any bears, but it is always good to get started, to see that the helicopter is working and get all necessary gear on board. So today, we went out on a longer trip, and we flew south, to Van Mijenfjorden and Van Keulenfjorden. These two fjords on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island of Svalbard, end in glaciers that stretch over to the east coast. Bears may cross over to the east frequently, where the water is colder and more bears are found. However, there are usually some bears also on the western side of the island, and particularly in spring.
The first part of the day, we did not encounter any bears, although we found some tracks. We spotted a ringed seal pup on the ice, far from the lair or from the closest breathing hole. It does happen they get too far away from the closest safe exit into the water, and the odds are then high they will be found by foxes, gulls or polar bears before they can escape.
After a couple of hours flying without encountering any bears, we finally found some fresh tracks in the outer part of Van Keulenfjorden. Here we found two adult females, only a few hundred meters apart, both on the sea ice on search for seals.
One was a seven year old female that had been earlier marked in the same area, originally in April 2008 as a two year old when still together with her mother. The other female was old, likely between 15 and 20 years of age, and not marked before. Accordingly, she got lip tattoos and ear marks so we will be able to recognize her if we capture her again another year. Finally, on a glacier, we found another old female, together with a one year old daughter. All the three adults were equipped with iridium telephone collars so we can follow their movements.

Climate change shapes polar bears’ past… and future

2 October, 2012General, Polar bearsclimate, polar bearsuser

Polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea are showing signs of vulnerability, such as diminished ... / ©: Eric V. Regehr / USGS

Change… Following on the well-traveled path of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and others since, Isaac Asimov once said:
“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be…”
Alternatively – change is the only constant.
The planet we call home has been changing since it all began some four billion years ago. From the formation of our current atmosphere to the position, shape, and size of the continents that support us, change has indeed been a constant. Therefore, while the world is certainly a very different place today than it was say a thousand years ago, the questions that haunt us now have to do more with the rate, magnitude, and drivers of that change. Answers to those questions are providing some troubling, if not alarming, data regarding human driven changes. Some scientists have even coined a new term for our current era: the anthropocene: the time when human activities became the dominant drivers of key global systems and biodiversity.
Nowhere are these questions more acute, and the transformative affects more apparent than in the Arctic, a region that is warming at more than twice the global average. The face of that change for many is the iconic polar bear. A warming Arctic is rapidly eroding the very sea ice that polar bears need to be- well- to be polar bears as we know them today. While polar bears have clearly survived warming events in the past, there is no reason to infer the bears we have today will be as fortunate. A host of scientific research has clearly laid out those concerns and the measurable impacts of warming to date on some management units like Western Hudson Bay. However, some new observations of hybrid bears in the wild and fresh data on polar bear genetics have some people asking questions.
First, let’s look at the important recent genetic study (overview | original study) that resets our collective understanding of bear evolution and relatedness. This paper was several years in the works and required the collaboration of many scientists from around the world. It will not be the last word on polar bear evolution, but it provides a significant new dataset and several new hypotheses that reshape our understanding of this species. The essence of this first full look into the polar bear genome is that they split from a common bear ancestor with brown bears much longer ago than currently thought (up to 4.5 MYA) and that the two are sister species that have interbred historically. Polar bears likely co-evolved with brown bears, but did not evolve fromthem as previously thought. Researches also theorize that past changes in climate likely brought these two species into closer proximity that allowed for this hybridization. While some of their genes may carry on through cross breeding, there is no reason to believe the animals we know as polar bears would endure.
Genetic data also suggest that polar bears occur in much smaller numbers today than in prehistory. There is also no evidence that early polar bears resemble the highly specialized animals we know today. These historical population estimates appear to track changes in climate, showing a long-term decline in numbers since the last ice age. One result of this decline is that polar bears likely possess far less genetic diversity today than they had historically, making them more vulnerable to recent and projected changes.
At the end of the day, whether polar bears are 150,000 years old or 5 million, in the face of current persistent and rapid climate warming, the world around them (and us) will be unlike anything they have experienced by the end of this century, if not earlier.