Churchill: A Town Under Siege - by Anne Gordon

Two young bears after a swim in the near freezing waters of Hudson Bay.

For six weeks from mid October through to the end of November, Churchill, in Canada's remote north, becomes a town under siege.

Its local population swells from 900 Churchillians to a whopping 10,000; the attraction, the annual migration to the sea ice of the world's largest, most ferocious land predators.



Each year at this time a polar bear migration that dates back thousands of years is set in motion as the waters along the western coast of Hudson Bay begin to freeze. With an inborn instinct, polar bears, scattered for hundreds of miles across the tundra, sense this change.Having fasted on a diet of berries, kelp and grasses for close to three months, the siren call of the ice is irresistible. Prompted by a gnawing hunger for meat the ravenous bears are enticed by the prospects of a feed they favour above all else; the soft tender flesh of ringed seal pups.

Standing up to three and a half meters tall at full stretch, the largest weighing in at 675 kilograms, these magnificent killing machines move across glacial rock and tundra from their southern stamping grounds for the town that just happens to be on the direct route to the sea ice.

A curious bear is drawn to investigate the delectable odours
emanating from the Tundra Buggy.
With a sense of smell twenty times stronger
than that of a human, not much escapes his attention.

As they approach, Churchill, with years of polar bear encounters, prepares its defences. Sirens are tested, extra rangers from around the country are brought in to patrol the town's boundaries and divert the invaders. The polar bear jail is readied and rifles are loaded with cracker shells . . . . a big bang causing no physical damage.

There was a period in the '70s when any poar bear wandering into town was shot. Not so today.

Bears that slip into town after managing to evade the ´polar bear police´ on the town's outskirts are either darted or lured into a trap baited with delectably fragrant cloth doused in whale or seal oil. From there the bears are transported to the ´polar bear jail', a huge metal enclosure just steps from Churchill's Lilliputian airport

On my recent visit to Churchill for a bear watching safari, the jail was already temporary home to ten miscreants. In 2005, 58 polar bears passed through its accommodations. The polar bears, kept in a cubicle in solitary confinement for 30 days, are fed a diet (or non-diet) that can only be described as bland. No seal meat, no whale blubber, not even a kelp snack, only water in the form of snow.

Life in the jail was not always so spartan for these gigantic carnivores. At first bears were given 'tasty meals', but then the town soon discovered its mistake. The wily animals returned the following year for a comfortable wait and regular feeding at 'Hotel Polar Bear'(the jail)until the waters of Hudson Bay froze over allowing them to hunt. It seemed that hard labour was the only answer.

Most frequently in the past the bears highway into town was via Button Street ending up opposite the Lazy Bear Lodge in the town's center. Disturbed at the thought - I was staying at the Lazy Bear Lodge - I asked Jerry our guide what to expect should I see a bear sneaking out from one of the alleys lining the main street. "Don't worry" he said. "If you see a bear just give it a wide berth! Once they reach town the stimuli usually confuses them. Houses and cars are left unlocked during the bear season so just duck into the nearest door or flag down a car."

Was it any consolation to hear that problem bears, those that return again and again, are sedated and shipped out of town in a cradle hanging beneath a helicopter?

Indeed it was. Doped and disoriented, delinquent bears are deposited in a more northerly area close to the sea ice. The cost of this punishment, starting ta $5,000 a time, is borne by the Churchillians. A fund, kept in the black by film crews who want to photograph an evacuation, lessens the burden with a constant inflow of photography fees.

As I snuggled deep into my duvet in The Lazy Bear Lodge that first night on Canada's wild frontier, my thoughts drifted back to the day's polar bear safari on the tundra.

On a viewing platform at the back of the giant tundra buggy I had a nose to nose encounter with a massive male polar bear. He had stretched himself full length against the side of the buggy to get a better view of us on the platform. Just feet apart, my camera trained on his face, I looked into apair of dangerously intelligent eyes. They were dark brown edged with a milky halo. He hissed softly as he watched me. As I looked back at him through my camera lens I felt almost hypnotized.

He was what Jarret, our driver, called a 'real pretty bear', but the truth is that this huge, fluffy, cuddly looking animal with its gentle dog-like face could and would, given the opportunity,crush a human head with its powerful jaws in seconds. A representative from the Polar Bears International organization showed us exactly how in a demonstration with Jarret, our driver, acting as polar bear lunch. Using a bear skull to illustrate the nears modus operandi, she opened the jaws then clamped them over Jarret's head.

Jarret Long, our Tundra Buggy driver, in a demonstration
showing a polar bear's mode of attack
once it has pulled a seal from it's breathing hole on the sea ice.

Meanwhile, back in the Lazy Bear Lodge the sharp report of cracker shells throughout the dark night reminded me that it was dangerous out there. On patrol 24/7 rangers touring the town's perimeter and equipped with spotlights, illuminate dark spaces where polar bears could be hiding.

Should a bear be seen in town, the eerie wail of a siren alerts the townspeople.

Thinking back on this incredible days on Canada's Arctic tundra, I couldn't help fear for the future of these magnificent beasts. The polar bear population has dwindled to around 25,000 and the alarm bell is tolling for their survival. Because of global warming, the sea ice id forming later each year. The bears are having to fast up to three weeks longer. Spending less time on the ice means the bears are unable to hunt and build up the body reserves necessary for the summer months on land.

There is a danger according to Lara Hansen, a scientist with the World Wildlife Fund, 'that bears could become so thin by 2012 they may no longer be able to reproduce." Without a determined effort to control this mounting problem this could be the century that polar bears become a memory, a tragic loss for humanity.

Guide Jerry Anderson takes members of a tour group
past the polar bear jail on the edge of town.

Anne Gordon and James Gordon are travel writers based in Guelph, ON, Canada

This article has been included here in its entirety. It was copied from DEL Condominium Life, Spring issue 2007

Photographs by Anne Gordon

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Help Protect Polar Bears as Endangered

Polar bear photo by Brendan Cummings.
Please forward this message to 10 friends.
It's our last chance to influence the process
a- let's rally as many people as we can.

This article is from the newsletter by The Center for Biological Diversity:




Polar bears are in trouble. The melting of the Arctic is killing them. Some are already starving and drowning. If global warming is allowed to continue, the Arctic will be entirely ice-free during the summer, dooming polar bears to extinction.

Read more about the petition to the US Government.


But as you may have seen in the news over the past few days, federal bureaucrats are illegally delaying a decision to protect the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Meanwhile they are fast-tracking Arctic oil drilling while the bear remains unprotected!

The Center for Biological Diversity and our allies are preparing to go to court to force the administration to finalize the Endangered Species Act listing. But we need your help as well. Polar bears need a massive groundswell of public support to show that people are watching and will not tolerate delays, denial, or political game-playing.

Tell the Bush administration to immediately list the polar bear as an endangered species. With your help, we'll send the petition with 50,000 signatures to the White House on January 31st.

Click the wolf for the petition.

When I wrote the 170-page scientific request to list the polar bear as an endangered species in 2004, I never dreamed how much public support it would garner. Hundreds of thousands of people have urged the government to act.

The decision to save the polar bear - or not - is in its final stages. Please take a minute to sign the petition today . Polar bears will thank you for it.


Sincerely,

Kassie Siegel
Climate, Air and Energy Program Director
Center for Biological Diversity

p.s. Check out this story in National Geographic:

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS January 7, 2008

U.S. Delays Polar Bear Decision
BY John Roach

The U.S. government today postponed a final decision on whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

The delay stems from a backlog of work, not scientific uncertainty or a pending lease sale for oil and gas development in polar bear habitat, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said during a telephone press briefing.

The service said it will miss its original Wednesday deadline but plans to make a formal recommendation within 30 days. No firm decision date was set, however.

Evaluation of a suite of reports from the U.S. Geological Survey that concluded two-thirds of the world's polar bears could go extinct by 2050 prompted the delay, the service said.

The studies were completed last September, but in response, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reopened and extended a public comment period on the findings.

Evaluation of the new science and the comments it generated is still going on, Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said during the briefing.

"While we do not like missing time lines that are called for under the act, it is far more important to us to get a right answer and have it explained properly to the public," he said. "So we'll be needing to take some extra time here to finish that up."

Scott Bergen is a landscape ecologist with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and a contributing author to the U.S. Geological Survey polar bear studies. He said he is disappointed with the delay.

"At least with the scientific team I was involved with, it was pretty clear, especially with the polar bear population that exists in Alaska, that they are in danger," he said. "I'm hoping this delay is temporary and only 30 days."

Lawsuit and Suspicions

A coalition of environmental groups said today they will file a lawsuit notice Wednesday to enforce the deadline. The groups are suspicious the delay is political, not scientific.

For example, the U.S. Mineral Management Service announced last week that it will hold a final lease sale for oil and gas development in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern Alaskan coast, which is polar bear habitat. The sale is slated to happen on February 6.

"It's very suspicious," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity and lead author of the 2005 petition to list the polar bear.

"It's our experience that when listing decisions get delayed in Washington, D.C., it's always a bad thing, because Washington, D.C., is where the political interference happens," she added.

Fish and Wildlife director Hall said the lease sale has no bearing on the delay and added that any action related to the lease sale would still have to comply with the Endangered Species Act and other environmental regulations.

Scientific Certainty

In addition, Hall noted, there is no strong scientific uncertainty regarding the U.S. Geological Survey findings that two-thirds of polar bears face a risk of extinction by 2050.

"It's just unfortunately one of those times I'll have to tell you we'll have to miss a deadline in order to provide the quality and product that we believe needs to be provided," he said.

Alaska Governor Sara Palin wrote in a January 5 op-ed for the New York Times that "there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future-the trigger for protection under the Endangered Species Act."

The Center for Biological Diversity's Siegel said all science has a degree of uncertainty but that uncertainty is very low for the polar bear.

Polar bears eat mostly seals and other fatty marine animals that they hunt from sea ice. The bears prefer to hunt from ice that hangs over shallow continental shelf waters, which contain more prey than deeper waters offshore.

But summer sea ice in the polar bears' Arctic habitat is shrinking and retreating farther and farther from the coastline, which crimps the bears' ability to forage efficiently. Some bears are starving to death.

Scientists believe human-caused global warming is contributing to the decline in sea ice habitat.

Saving polar bears, therefore, requires human action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, Siegel noted. But taking such action is a political decision.

"We know what we have to do to save polar bears," she said. "We just have to start doing it."

Polar bear photo by Brendan Cummings.

Click on the Wolf above to see more on protection of Endangered and near endangered Species at the Center for Biological Diversity. Help protect the Polar Bear and other species.

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