More ‘bears on shore’ news today, this time involving a young polar bear that came ashore in the village of Puvirnituq, northern Quebec and was shot for safety reasons by a local hunter.
This incident is reminiscent of one last year a bit further north (Ivujivik) in early March, which I reported here. Both involved young bears from the large and stable Foxe Basin subpopulation. As I’ve pointed out before, most bears in late winter are at their lowest weight and this can make them very dangerous if they come ashore looking for food.
But unlike the Ivujivik incident, was the first time a bear had ever come into the village of Puvirnituq, making it more like the visit in late February 2017 of a young female bear in Inukjuak further south along the coast, the first such visit of a polar bear to that community in more than 30 years.
The exception to lean condition in late winter being the norm are bears in the Davis Strait subpopulation that have harp seals to feed on by February and are often in good condition by early March, as was the bear reported ashore yesterday in Newfoundland.
Puvirnituq, northern Quebec. Polar bears in this region are part of the Foxe Basin subpopulation.
The news today came via an English language blog post that got an essential detail wrong1, so I turned to Google Translate to offer this version of the original, in French (Journal de Montreal, 7 March 2018):
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