Tag Archives: St. Anthony

More fat polar bear sightings around homes on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula

Two recent incidents really remind me of the opening scene in my polar bear attack thriller, EATEN, and this time both were captured on film. They involved bears in good physical condition and luckily, no one has been hurt. There is still sea ice off the Northern Peninsula, which has brought the bears from the north.

On Sunday (10 April) in St. Anthony, a woman was alerted by her dog to what she though was someone on the front porch and found herself literally face to face with a polar bear when she opened the door; it then hopped up on her roof. The next day, in Goose Cove, a woman watched two bears (probably a female with a two year old male cub) explore the outside of a neighbour’s house and then walk across her driveway.

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Heads up Newfoundland & Labrador: polar bear season has begun

There is now enough sea ice off southern Labrador and the northern tip of Newfoundland for Davis Strait polar bears to come ashore looking for food. Baby seals won’t be available for months yet. And since winter is the lean season for these bears, some may seek food sources onshore. The bears come down from the area of Hudson Strait and southern Baffin Island: as the sea ice expands south, so do the bears.

Polar bear tracks_25 Feb Labrador 2015 CBC

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Lingering late season sea ice brings polar bear visitor to northern Newfoundland

Polar bear season for St. Lunaire-Griquet Newfoundland ran from 6 March to 10 June this year — three long months when polar bears came to visit the community during the season when bears are usually occupied with feeding on young seals and mating.

Newfoundland polar bear 10 June 2018_Iceberg Festival Committee_Thresa Burden photo

Below is a map of the region: St. Lunaire-Griquet is at the tip of the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, just north of St. Anthony (where some of the action in my polar bear attack thriller, EATEN, takes place):

Saint Lunaire Griquet Newfoundland location_Google maps

As of yesterday (June 10), when the last sighting of a fat and healthy polar bear took place, there was still quite a mass of thick first year ice (>1.2 m thick) off the northern peninsula of Newfoundland, amongst a field of icebergs:

Hudson Bay North daily stage of development 2018 June 10 ice warning

The first sighting in the area this year was back in early March, which I blogged about here. Fortunately, the Davis Strait bears that occupy the East Coast pack ice are usually well feed at this time of year and seldom pose a serious threat to humans: the fact that visitors ashore are often easily pursuaded to leave (or do so on their own) suggests they are more curious than hungry.

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