Polar bear watching in high gear near Churchill as everyone waits for the sea ice to form – Watts Up With That?

Reposted from Polar Bear Science

By Dr. Susan Crockford

All the bears inside view of the coastal net cams on the shore of Wapusk Nationwide Park close to Churchill on Western Hudson Bay appear to be in excellent form this yr, regardless of having come off the ice a few weeks earlier than they’ve over the previous couple of years. Regardless of this, problems with bears in Churchill appear to have been below average this year. Some nice motion could be seen by way of a number of Explore dot org live web cams which are streaming from shore proper now.

No ice forming but alongside the west coast of Hudson Bay as of immediately, which is a bit later than it has been for the last few years. Meaning a few of these bears will doubtless have spent nearly 5 months onshore by the point they get again on the newly-formed ice and resume hunting seals.

Nonetheless, all that is excellent news for the highly-regulated polar bear viewing business that operates out of Churchill, Manitoba.

As a consequence of a really shut relationship that the dominant firm Frontiers North has with the highly-influential conservation non-profit Polar Bears Worldwide (PBI, for which many IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group biologists act as ‘advisors’), vacationers taking these viewing journeys are fed a steady narrative of gloomy prospects for future polar bear survival alongside alarmist local weather change ’emergency’ rhetoric.

This primary week of November has been dubbed ‘Polar Bear Week’ by PBI as a result of it’s historically the perfect viewing time at this location and subsequently the perfect time for them to hawk their propaganda.

Firms ship their big-wheeled buggies (see instance beneath) out over the tundra at Wakusp Nationwide Park the place the bear congregate and look ahead to the ice to kind.

The net cam operated by Explore.org (with funding assist from PBI) exhibits a bit of sunshine snow in some locations and ice solely on the tundra ponds. There seems to have been some good bear motion, so at the least the vacationers have been getting photographs of fats bears to counter the propaganda they’re being fed. One has to marvel, what number of of them discover the disconnect?

Photographs beneath are screencaps from the reside net cam taken on 1 November 2021.

Beneath, two large males who shortly after started ‘sparring’ [the play-fighting that is practice for the real fighting that goes on during the mating season in April/May]

One other view, in all probability of the identical two males…

Beneath, two sows, every with a yearling cub

Downside bear stories for Churchill

The Polar Bear Alert Program has lastly fully up to date its downside bear stories to 24 October 2021, which was week 17 this yr, with one other batch of stories posted this morning (2 November):

Examine the above to 2018 on the identical time (additionally week 17 that yr), when there have been nearly twice as many incidents (see 2. ‘occurrences’ ):

In distinction, 2017 on the identical time (which was week 16 that yr) was similar to 2021: