Tag Archives: problem

New paper polar bears attracted to garbage dumps blames lack of sea ice without any evidence

Posted on July 21, 2022 | Comments Off

A paper published yesterday discusses polar bears that get into human garbage and cause other problems due to community attractants. Most of the incidents recounted and the issues they’ve raised have been reported by the media and are ones I’ve discussed here over the last few years in detail, including here and here, as well as in my recent book (Crockford 2019).

Churchill dump 2003. Dan Guravich photo, Polar Bears International handout.

All you need to know about the motivation behind the paper comes from the authors’ acknowledgement:

This paper developed from a meeting in Churchill, Manitoba, in autumn 2019 where the issue of dump use by polar bears arose. We thank Dan Cox [a photographer for PBI] for suggesting exploration of this issue and Polar Bears International for arranging this meeting.

So, six months or so after my book came out in March 2019, in which these issues were discussed in detail, polar bear experts decided it was time to write a paper on the topic. The open access paper, by Tom Smith and colleagues (Smith et al. 2022), is accompanied by an online essay published the same day by the lead author and picked up at least one cheer-leading media outlet via Reuters. See what you think.

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Polar bear attacks

Tagged attractants, garbage, polar bear, problem, sea ice, Tom Smith

No updates from Churchill polar bear alert program since July 12

Posted on August 27, 2021 | Comments Off

What the heck is happening in Churchill? Either the Polar Bear Alert Program has produced no reports or they have simply not been posted. It’s been more than 6 weeks since the last published report.

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Posted in Conservation Status, Polar bear attacks

Tagged attack, Churchill, ice-free season, Manitoba, polar bear, problem, western hudson bay

Polar bear problems onshore in Svalbard before prime feeding season

Posted on April 5, 2021 | Comments Off

At the end of March there were two polar bear incidents on the same day in Svalbard, where one bear trashed a holiday cabin. Think a door or a window can keep out a polar bear? Think again!

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Posted in Life History, Polar bear attacks, Scientists hit back

Tagged destruction, polar bear, problem, sighting, spring, Svalbard

Churchill problem polar bear report for week 3 and a triplet litter of cubs spotted

Posted on September 19, 2020 | Comments Off

Courtesy the Town of Churchill:

Also, note that a mother with a litter of triplets spotted along the coast of Wapusk National Park (just east and south of Churchill) in good condition, 15 September 2020 (see photo below). Biologist Nick Lunn falsely claimed in 2018 that no triplet litters had been born in Western Hudson Bay since 1996 – a correction made later claimed Lunn meant there hasn’t been any triplet litters seen in the fall, which was also not true in 2017 or in 2020:

Compare weekly stats above for this year to a few previous years at the second week in September:

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Posted in Life History, Polar bear attacks

Tagged Alert Program, Churchill, litter size, polar bear, problem, triplets

Svalbard finds tranquilizing & removing problem polar bears comes with risks to bears

Posted on March 29, 2020 | Comments Off

In Svalbard, Norway, it is routine practice to chase polar bears away from settlements with snow machines and helicopters, then tranquilize and relocate them if necessary but in late January this approach led to the death of a young male bear.

Svalbard pb visits Longyearbyen 28 Dec 2019 ICEPEOPLE

Necropsy results released 26 March 2020 revealed that the two year old bear, who had wandered into and around Longyearbyen multiple times in late January, was captured after a prolonged helicopter chase but died enroute as it was flown north to Nordaustlandet (see map below) from circulatory failure due to administering anesthesia after the prolonged stress of being chased.

Video here of the bear being chased out of Longyearbyen by helicopter (photo above is of the New Year’s bear). Longyearbyen has had more problems than usual with polar bears this winter due to the unusually extensive sea ice off the west coast of Svalbard. Polar bears are particularly dangerous in winter and with the abundance of bears in recent years many Arctic communities are at risk with each having to find their own solutions.

In the wee hours of New Years Day 2020 a fat Svalbard polar bear was shot because of persistent visits to downtown Longyearbyen and the public was outraged. A few weeks later a bear attacked a dogsled loaded with tourists. The death of the young bear in late January in the course of removing it (rather than shooting it) is a reminder that tranquilizing a polar bear, especially after a prolonged chase, can be as lethal as shooting it.

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Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Arctic, attack, attacks, polar bears, problem, safety, sea ice, self-defense, tranquilizer drugs

Fat adult polar bear shot in Svalbard New Years Eve after persistent visits to Longyearbyen

Posted on January 2, 2020 | Comments Off

Another rare winter visit by a polar bear on New Year’s Eve, this time in Svalbard, comes with far more detail than the sighting in Newfoundland that I wrote about yesterday.

The Svalbard problem bear was shot over safety concerns after repeated visits to the downtown streets of the main town of Longyearbyen on the west coast (see map below). Neither of the reports bothered to mention that this was not a starving juvenile bear but a fat, healthy young adult – and no one blamed global warming for the incident because Svalbard has had extensive ice on the west coast this fall for the first time since 2010. The shooting of course sparked an outburst of social media outrage.

UPDATED 16 January 2020: As I predicted would happen (see below), there has been another polar bear incident about 10 km outside of Longyearbyen in Bolterdalen. On Wednesday 15 January, a bear attacked a dogteam loaded with tourists near the end of their trip. The bear was advancing so fast there was no time for the driver to grab his rifle, so he used the heavy rope used to brake the sled to hit the bear across the muzzle several times. This stopped the attack and made the bear run off. Svalbard officials are now chasing the bear well out of the area. From this report:

“Starinsky, a guide for Green Dog Svalbard, located about 10 kilometers east of Longyearbyen, told the newspaper there was no time to grab his rifle as they stopped the sleds within seconds, and the bear got within yards of a sled carrying a mother and her daughter. He grabbed “the first and best” thing he could think of – the noose-shaped brake rope hanging on the front of his sled.”

It turns out the bear’s tracks were spotted the day before just south of town. All that remains of the attack are the tracks of the bear near the dog kennel, below, and the nightmares of the people involved in the days ahead. They were very lucky indeed.

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Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat

Tagged attack, Barents Sea, Bolterdalen, facts, killing, outrage, polar bear, problem, sea ice, social media, Svalbard, winter

My International Polar Bear Op-Ed at the Financial Post on 27 February 2019

Posted on March 15, 2019 | Comments Off

In case you missed it back on 27 Februrary 2019. See the original here (with photos).**

Crockford Financial Post Opinion_photo_27 Feb 2019

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Polar bear attacks, Population, Summary

Tagged attacks, Churchill, essay, fatal, Novaya Zemlya, Nunavut, opinion, polar bear, problem, sea ice

Two polar bears onshore in coastal Labrador, one relocated for public safety

Posted on February 1, 2019 | Comments Off

Just in (VOCM, 1 February 2019) from a community called Makkovik on the coast of Labrador: one of two bears sighted prowling the local dump has been relocated for public safety. The community is still on high alert until the other bear can be located.

Black Tickle polar-bear-7 March 2017 Kim Penney photo shared CBC

Polar bear spotted near Black Tickle Labrador on 7 March 2017.

Polar bears are extraordinarily dangerous at this time of year because they are usually at their leanest weight and can be desperate for food of any kind. See the most recent example here, others here and here (with references).

See below for a map showing the location of Makkovik, population about 360.
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Posted in Polar bear attacks

Tagged attacks, Labrador, polar bear, problem, safety, threat