Trouble in Arctic town as polar bears and people face a warming world

“Can I give you some advice about polar bears?” asks Tee, a confident 13-year-old girl we meet during a tour of Churchill’s high school.

“If there is a bear that close to you,” she says, measuring the distance with her hands, about 30 cm. “Make a fist and punch the nose.

“A polar bear has a very sensitive nose – he’ll just run away.”

T didn’t have to test this advice. But growing up here – with the planet’s largest land predator – means bear safety is part of everyday life.

Signs – in shops and cafes – remind anyone going out to “be aware”. My favorite reads: “If a polar bear attacks you then do “Counterattack.”

Running away from a running polar bear – perhaps upside down – is dangerous. Bears tend to chase prey and polar bears can run at speeds of up to 25 mph (40 kph).

Key advice: Be alert and aware of your surroundings. Don’t roam alone at night.

Churchill is known as the polar bear capital of the world. Every year, Hudson Bay – on the western shore of which the city sits – melts, forcing the bears to come ashore. As autumn grows colder, hundreds of bears gather here in wait.

“We have freshwater rivers flowing through our region and cold water coming in from the Arctic,” explains Alyssa McCall of Polar Bears International (PBI). “So the freeze-up happens here first.

“For polar bears, the sea ice is a big dinner plate – it’s access to their main prey, seals. They’re probably excited to have a big meal of seal blubber – they haven’t been eating much on land all summer. “

There are 20 known sub-populations of polar bears in the Arctic. It is the southernmost and one of the best studied.

“They are our fat, white, hairy canaries in the coal mine,” explains Alyssa. “In the 1980s we had about 1,200 polar bears and we’ve lost about half of them.”

decline This corresponds to the period when the bay is now ice-free, a period that is becoming longer as the climate warms. No sea ice means no frozen seal-hunting platforms.

“The bears here now stay on the ground about a month longer than their grandparents,” explains Alyssa. “That puts a strain on moms. (With less food) it’s harder to stay pregnant and maintain those babies.”

While their long-term survival is uncertain, the bears attract conservation scientists and thousands of tourists to Churchill each year.

We tag along with a group of PBs to search for bears on the sub-Arctic tundra – just a few miles from town. The team travels in Tundra Buggies, a type of off-road bus with large tires.

After watching from a distance, we get a heart-stopping close-up. A young bear approaches and investigates our slow two-wagon convoy. He sits to one side, sniffs a vehicle, then leaps up and puts two giant paws on the side of the buggy.

The bear casually falls back onto its four legs, then looks up and looks at me briefly. It’s extremely confusing to look at the face of an animal that is simultaneously adorable and potentially deadly.

“You can see him sniffing and even licking the vehicle – using all his senses,” says PBI’s Geoff York, who has worked in the Arctic for more than three decades.

Being here in ‘bear season’ means Geoff and his colleagues can test new techniques for detecting bears and protecting people. The PBI team is currently fine-tuning the radar-based system called ‘Bair-DAR’.

The experimental rig – a long antenna with detectors scanning 360 degrees – is set up on the roof of a lodge in the middle of the tundra, near Churchill.

“It has artificial intelligence, so here we can basically teach it what a polar bear is,” Geoff explains. “It works 24/7, it can see even at night and in low visibility.”

Protecting the community is the job of the Polar Bear Alert Team – trained rangers who patrol Churchill every day.

We ride with ranger Ian Van Nest, who is on the lookout for a stubborn bear that he and his colleagues tried to chase away earlier that day. “It turned around and came back toward Churchill. It didn’t seem to have any interest in moving away.”

For bears that intend to wander around town, the team can use a live trap: a tube-shaped container, into which seal meat is inserted, with a door that can be opened when the bear climbs inside. Does.

“Then we put them into a holding facility,” explains Ian. The bear is kept for 30 days, this period is set to teach the bear that coming to the city in search of food is a negative thing, but does not threaten the health of the animal.

They are then transported – either on the back of a trailer or sometimes lifted into the air by helicopter – and dropped off next to the bay, away from people.

Cyril Fredlund, who works at Churchill’s new scientific observatory, remembers the last time a polar bear killed a person in Churchill in 1983.

“It was right in town,” he says. “The man was homeless and was in an abandoned building at night. There was also a young bear there – he knocked him down with his paw, like he was a seal.”

People came to help, Cyril recalls, but they couldn’t get the bear away from the man. “It was as if he was guarding his food.”

The Polar Bear Alert Program was established around the same time. Since then no one has been killed by a polar bear here.

Cyril is now a technician at the new Churchill Marine Observatory (CMO). Part of this is to understand how this environment will respond to climate change.

Beneath its retractable roof are two huge pools filled with water pumped directly from Hudson Bay.

“We can do all kinds of controlled experimental studies looking at changes in the Arctic,” says Professor Feiyu Wang.

One implication of less icy Hudson Bay is a longer operating season for the port, which is currently closed for nine months of the year. A longer season during which the bay thaws and becomes open water could mean more ships coming in and out of Churchill.

Studies are being conducted at the observatory to improve the accuracy of sea ice forecasts. The research will also examine the risks associated with port expansion. One of the first investigations is an experimental oil spill. Scientists plan to drop the oil into a pool, test cleanup techniques, and measure how quickly the oil degrades in cold water.

For Churchill Mayor, Mike Spence, understanding how to plan for the future, especially when it comes to shipping goods in and out of Churchill, is vital to the city’s future in a warming world.

“We are already considering extending the season,” he says, pointing to the port, which has closed operations for the winter. “In ten years’ time, it will be bustling.”

Climate change is a challenge for the polar bear capital of the world, but the mayor is optimistic. He says, “We have a great city, a wonderful community. And the summer season — (when people come to see beluga whales in the bay) — is growing.”

“We are all being challenged by climate change,” he added. “Does that mean you stop existing? No – you adapt. You work out how to take advantage of it.”

While Mike Spence says “the future is bright” for the Churchill, it may not be so bright for the polar bear.

T and her friends look at the bay from the back window of the school building. Polar bear alert team vehicles are gathering outside, trying to lure a bear away from town.

“If climate change continues,” says Tee’s classmate Charlie, “polar bears may stop coming here.”

Teachers step in to make sure there is someone coming to pick up the children – so they don’t have to go home alone. All part of the daily routine in the polar bear capital of the world.