Polar Bears and Aurora Borealis

At the end of October I had the opportunity to travel to Churchill, Manitoba, and live in the Northern Studies Centre for three weeks. About 10 years ago, a former graduate student in our lab developed a computer program to ID polar bears using photographs. This is done by comparing the side profile of the face of a bear, and comparing the whisker print patterns between bears. You can think of a whisker print pattern like a human finger print, where each bear has a unique pattern.

One of the reasons that I travelled to Churchill was to collect bear photographs for the whisker print project; The more photographs we have in the library, the easier it is to ID a bear in the future. I was also there as a guest lecturer on two of the Polar Bear educational courses that are hosted by the study centre every Fall. For each course I gave a short lecture on the project, as well as a seminar to show people how the program works to ID bears. The end goal is to not only teach people about the project, but to also get them involved by collecting photos of bears when they are out on the Tundra. This way, not only am I collecting photos for the project, but potentially everyone who is involved with the course is also collecting photographs.

In June, the ice cover starts to rapidly decline in Hudson Bay. Polar bears are pushed off of their hunting grounds on the sea ice back on to the shore for the summer months. During the summer, polar bears spend most of their time resting and waiting for the end of October (Now usually the middle of November), for the sea ice to form once again. During theses months, they spread out quite a bit and are incredibly inactive.                                                                                                            

Just waiting for the sea ice to form, so he can start hunting seals once again

I've heard quite a few stories of people seeing the same bear in the exact same spot for several weeks during the summer months. 

At the end of October when the temperatures start to drop, the bears start to head back towards the shore in anticipation for the bay to freeze back up. This is by far the best time for people to see bears, and it is the reason why Churchill is at its busiest in late October and early November. Even in the small 10km x 15km area that we tend to survey, its not uncommon to see 30 bears in a day at the peak. Once the bay freezes over, the bears immediately go out on to the ice to start hunting seals again. 

A Tundra Buggy used to view bears. (Photo from Frontiers North)

The best way to see bears is by chartering a Tunda Buggy (pictured below). These are massive, custom made vehicles with the base of an old airport fire truck. The tires alone are 5-6 ft tall, so even the largest bears have a difficult time trying to pluck you out of the windows.

It was nice to be able to see the transition to snow and ice. When I first got there, the landscape was filled with many small pools of water, grass and willows. Although they don't get much rain, the permafrost prevents the water from draining, and it instead forms a wetland of sorts. On the 27th of October, everything has frozen over by the time we got back to base. The transition virtually happened overnight.

Spotting bears on the tundra is definitely quite a skill. For the first 3 or 4 outings, I thought that every single rock was a bear. For a white animal, its amazing how well camouflaged they seem, even without the snow.

Even in mid October, the bears seemed to spend quite alot of time lying around. Every so often one would take some time to check out the buggy.

"Hey, Im over here!"

I was surprised to see many bears eating grass and kelp. Their digestive tracts are certainly not built to get any kind of energy from plant material, but maybe it makes them feel full. Or maybe they're just bored....

nom nom nom nom

Digging for Kelp

Once the temperatures started to drop, the bears became noticeably more active. The very first bear I came across after the snowfall just decided to roll around in the snow for about 10 minutes. She even did some very impressive yoga poses.

Mom and cub of the year (COY)

Large male with many facial scars

We also got to see alot more play behaviour and interactions once there was snow on the ground. For the most part, polar bears are considered a solitary species. Females avoid males, especially when they have cubs around, because males will readily kill and eat cubs if given the opportunity. Once the sea ice forms, male bears will fight intensively for mating opportunities. Fights can often lead to serious injury and even death. It is common to see older males that have scars all over their face and bodies from previous encounters with other bears. Despite all of this, during the summer and fall when bears are fasting on land, it is not uncommon to see male bears play fighting with one another. Play encounters can last from several minutes to an hour, and bears are often left completely exhausted and overheated. This energy intensive display is all happening at a time of the year where bears may have been fasting for several months, and may not eat again for several more.





                                                                                          I actually didn't see too many males playing this year, but I did get a few shots of mothers playing
with their cubs. These cubs are often almost the same size as their mother, so they are likely in their second (or maybe even third) fall......

An although I was really excited to see the bears, I was happy to see a few other species on the tundra as well. I spotted a Snowy Owl, several light and dark phased gyrfalcons (yay!), snow buntings, redpolls, and I even managed to snag a few shots of some willow ptarmigan. Ptarmigan are one of the few species of birds that stay in the arctic-subarctic year round.

Look at those fuzzy feet

Overall it's been an incredible experience. All of the staff and volunteers at the study centre have been a pleasure to work/live with, and I've had some much desired "teaching" and public speaking experience. I must say I've probably gained 10 pounds from all the delicious food I've inhaled. Every meal was cooked for us, it was delicious, and it was buffet style.

With that being said, I'm glad to be home. I more or less spent my entire three weeks inside of the study centre, with the exception of my excursions on the tundra buggy. You can't really go outside without a shotgun, since there are bears all over the place. However, there is a balcony that can be used for northern lights viewing. A few days before I headed back to Winnipeg, we finally had a clear night with Aurora......

Its actually not all that common to get a clear night in the fall. Most days are windy and overcast.


Anyways, if you have made it this far, you made it through all the terrible formatting. I like the interface of blogger, but arranging photographs in anything but the centre is incredibly challenging.

Hopefully, ill be able to backtrack through my Botswana photos and do a post or two on that trip before Christmas. Stay tuned for more Africa photographs!!