On Friday, 8 April, a polar bear was photographed on the south coast of Fogo Island, Newfoundland at a time when sea ice surrounded the offshore island. The bear, spotted near North Side Road near Stag Harbour, was non-threatening to the point of being totally chilled out, but attracted enough human attention to cause traffic congestion. Another sighting a little more than a week ago near Tilting on the east side of the island could possibly have involved the same bear.
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Comments Off on Another polar bear on Fogo, this time on the south shore as sea ice surrounds the island
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Fogo Island, Newfoundland, polar bear, sea ice, sighting, Stag Harbour
On 29 March, there was a sighting of a polar bear on Fogo Island near the community of Tilting that prompted an official warning to residents. Although this bear caused no problems so far, that hasn’t always been the case and it’s a useful reminder that this is why I set my polar bear attack thriller EATEN in this location, at this time of year. If you haven’t read it, or given it as a gift, now might be the perfect time! In Canada here and the UK here.
From a review of EATEN by polar bear-human interaction specialist Doug Clark (June 2016):
Susan Crockford has not only written a fun novel that gets readers thinking, she has probably done polar bear conservation a real service. Because of how politicized polar bears have become as symbols of climate change, fiction is the only arena where one can really present this kind of scenario right now.
Sea ice conditions off Newfoundland on 28 March:
Comments Off on Newfoundland polar bear sighting two days ago: why my novel was set on Fogo Island in March
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged attacks, Newfoundland, polar bear, sighting
Back in 2017, we famously had National Geographic falsely blaming a starving polar bear on climate change but since then we have been inundated (relatively speaking) with stories of ‘wandering’ bears sighted far from Arctic coastlines. These wandering bears are oddities to be sure but are not in any way an indicator of melting Arctic sea ice or lost habitat, as The Times (UK) has claimed in this latest example (Polar bear treks 1,500 miles south as Arctic hunting zone melts away).
Similar to three other recent examples, from 2019 – in Alaska in winter, in Chukotka in early spring, and Siberia in late spring – this month’s example cannot rationally be blamed on lack of sea ice. This year’s bear took at least eight weeks to travel from the Lena River Delta area of the Laptev Sea to a small village in Yakusk, Russia where it was captured on 11 May, shown below on the map of the route it took included in the story at The Daily Mail (11 May).
Comments Off on Wandering polar bears are the new starving polar bears, falsely blamed on climate change
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged climate change, competition, inland, melting ice, polar bear, sea ice, Siberia, sighting, young bears
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!
Comments Off on Polar bear problems onshore in Svalbard before prime feeding season
Posted in Life History, Polar bear attacks, Scientists hit back
Tagged destruction, polar bear, problem, sighting, spring, Svalbard
Although ice coverage along the Labrador coast this fall has been well below average, there was a report today of a polar bear on shore on the north west coast of northern Newfoundland. The media seem to be treating this as an every-day sort of thing rather than the true rarity it is. As far as I know, there are no records of polar bears onshore in Newfoundland in late December and for it to happen this year is especially surprising given that ice coverage so far has been below average on the East Coast. It’s a more rare event than the early January attack last year by a polar bear in Alaska that had traveled more than a hundred miles inland. Will 2020 be another active polar bear season for Newfoundland? Time will tell – stay tuned over the new year.
Few details have been provided about this year’s late December sighting at Green Island Cove, just north of the ferry port of Saint Barbe (where the ferry to Labrador docks, see below). No photos or descriptions of the bear were made public and so far the bear does not seem to have caused any trouble: the photo above is from another sighting in Labrador a few years ago.
Sea ice this year has been scarce on the East Coast, but obviously enough for at least one determined bear to have made its way down from Davis Strait, swimming part of the way. See the two charts below:
Comments Off on Rare winter polar bear visit to northern Newfoundland New Years Eve 2019
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Labrador, Newfoundland, on shore, polar bear, sea ice, sighting, warning
From CBC News late yesterday (28 February 2019) comes the news that a polar bear seen skulking around the homes of a small coastal town in Labrador this week has had residents on edge and authorities on high alert. If tragedy struck, the St. Lewis road was blocked by snow and the only way in or out was by helicopter. Message: polar bears are highly dangerous and a bear prowling a community is a very real threat to safety.
This bear visited Black Tickle in Labrador a few years ago. Edwin Clark photo.
According to a CTV News follow-up, while the road to St. Lewis was cut off because of a recent snowstorm for most of the week, wildlife officers were able to get in today (Friday 1 March). Sighting about 100km north in Charlottetown earlier in the week are believed to be the same bear.
The last sighting of the animal was Thursday morning (28 Feb), so the bear may now have left of its own accord. No one seems to have captured a photo.
However, the fear felt by residents of St. Lewis (population 200) in this story is palpable, especially after the terrifying visuals from the well-publicized invasion by more than 50 polar bears at Belushaya Guba on Novaya Zemlya last month.
St. Lewis is located at the red marker; Charlottetown is the third town to the north. Both are just north of the Strait of Belle Isle that separates Labrador from the island of Newfoundland.
Comments Off on Polar bear prowling small Labrador town cut off by storm had authorities on high alert
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged attack, dangerous, invasion, Labrador, polar bear, safety, sea ice, sighting, St. Lewis, threat, winter
A report from the CBC this morning (with video) of a large polar bear wandering about the village of Tuktoyaktuk on the (Canadian) shore of the Eastern Beaufort Sea on Thursday (29 September) that got very close to a group of children playing outside. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
That this was a rare event is evident in the awe and excitement in the voices of the residents as someone recorded the movements of the bear through town (picture quality is not the best, but clear enough).
As I’ve said before, with more bears we can expect more interactions with people and more sightings like this that haven’t happened in decades. Map and quotes below.
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Comments Off on Polar bear onshore in Tuktoyaktuk got so close to kids they heard it breathing
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged attacks, Beaufort Sea, conflicts, declining sea ice, encounters, polar bear, sea ice, sighting, summer, thick spring ice
An interesting report from Labrador this morning: video footage of a fat polar bear running down an isolated 2-lane highway in southern Labrador.
Yet another reminder that there is still a lot of sea ice off that coast, which is home to the Davis Strait polar bear subpopulation.
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Comments Off on Labrador polar bear not lost or in danger – just running down a rural highway
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Davis Strait, highway, inland, Labrador, polar bear, sea ice, sighting, video
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