Posted onAugust 13, 2024|Comments Off on Western Hudson Bay sea ice breakup for polar bears like the 1980s for 3 of the last 5 yrs
The 1980s and early 1990s are said to have been the “good old days” for sea ice conditions and polar bears in Western Hudson Bay, with all tagged bears usually ashore by mid-to-late August. Then an abrupt step-change in sea ice breakup dates brought polar bears to shore an average of two weeks earlier in the late 1990s. From then until 2019, the only significant outlier to all tagged bears being ashore by about late July was 2009, which was such an unusually cold year that the last bears came ashore about August 20.
That pattern changed in 2020, when the last bears came off the ice as late as they had in 2009, on August 21. Something similar happened in 2022, when the last bears came off a small remnant of ice even later, about August 26. And this year, the bears may be moving ashore even later: there is even more ice remaining off WH and much of it is thick compacted ice that hasn’t melted much over the last few weeks, which means bears have been as late onshore as the 1980s for three out of the last five years.
Posted onAugust 13, 2024|Comments Off on Fatal polar bear attack in Davis Strait last week: important details being withheld
A man was killed last week (August 8) by two polar bears on a small island off the east coast of Baffin Island in Nunavut, multiple reports have confirmed — although precious few details have been provided, other than that one of the bears was killed immediately afterward. The name of the victim (an employee of a government radar site) has not been released, and no information on the condition of the bears or the circumstances of the attack have been provided. Major news outlets have had to pad their stories with details from previous attacks and other filler.
A Svalbard sow and half-grown male cub that’s as big as she is.
However, an attack by two bears sounds suspiciously like the sow and half-grown cub involved in another fatal attack in 2018 in Foxe Basin, even though adult females with cubs are one of the least common perpetrators of serious attacks on people.
Posted onAugust 1, 2024|Comments Off on Polar bear “boom” reported in East & Southwest Greenland comes with the usual problems
Reports over the last week of an unexpected abundance of polar bears onshore in East and Southwest Greenland have locals and tourists concerned. The former Prime Minister of Greenland claims the unusual number of bear sightings and problems with bears near communities (including an attack involving serious injury to a German researcher) are due to abundant sea ice offshore. This explanation is contrary to what polar bear specialists predict: i.e., that problems with bears occur when there is less ice than usual. None of the bears sighted have been described as thin or starving.
The Polar Bear Specialist Group has previously estimated that there are only about 650 bears in East Greenland, while a recent study estimated that an additional 234 bears lived in SE Greenland.
Polar bears don’t often show up in Southern or Western Greenland any more, but this year has been an exception. Only yesterday, two appeared near Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. And according to Aleqa Hammond, Greenland’s former Prime Minister, that’s just been the tip of the, well, iceberg.
“There are bears everywhere in West Greenland this year,” she told ExplorersWeb. “Quite a few have been way too close to towns in South Greenland this summer, too. Several polar bears have been shot in Qaqortoq, as the bears were literally in town.”
Another polar bear has been observed – and shot as an emergency – in Ittoqqortoormiit on Thursday morning. This is confirmed by the head of duty at the Greenland Police, Jørgen Madsen, to Sermitsiaq.
It is the second time a polar bear has been shot in emergency situations in Ittoqqortoormiit this week. On Tuesday evening around 19:30, the police received a report about a polar bear that had been shot in an emergency.
Here, the police could say that the polar bear came close to a dog crate, and then headed directly for a soccer field where children are playing.
Last week, a polar bear attacked a German researcher in East Greenland. The researcher, part of a team on Traill Island, encountered the bear on Friday morning.
Watch polar bear habitat reform in the Canadian Arctic: “last 10 days” Canadian Ice Service animation (works anytime) HERE.
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