Notes

Our Day With the Polar Bears
CHURCHILL, Manitoba (Achieve3000, August 22, 2007). It was the second day of a group wildlife guided tour. We were on the shores of the Hudson Bay in northern Canada, searching for polar bears on the tundra. Suddenly, one of my 20 fellow trackers yelled, "Over there, I see something!"
We looked across the new white snow that was covered with a thin sheet of ice. A few hundred yards away, lay a yellowish blob. Our vehicle cautiously moved closer. We reached for binoculars and cameras. Then, all at once, we gasped. That blob was actually a mother polar bear. She was nursing a cub. "I can't tell you how lucky you are," marveled Glenn Hopfner, our driver. "In 700 trips I've made out here, I've [only] seen this eight times."
Our group had set out the previous day from the historic frontier town of Churchill, Manitoba. It is one of the few places where humans can see polar bears in their natural surroundings. For several days, we rolled heavily along rutted trails and ice blocks in trailer-like tundra buggies. Our vehicles rode on six-foot-tall tires. That put us out of reach of any curious—and possibly vicious—1,000-plus-pound bears.
From the middle of October to early November, before winter sets in, visitors can take guided tours to see the polar bears. During these weeks, no place on Earth has more polar bears than Churchill.
We humans nearly froze during our late-autumn adventure. But the weather was still considered warm for the polar bears—too warm. The bears must wait for temperatures to drop so the pack ice will form again. The bears need the sturdy, frozen platforms for hunting ringed seals. The seals are a staple for the bears because of their high fat content. They live year-round in the Arctic waters.
But over the last several years, the snow and freezing temperatures required for the pack ice to form have been arriving late. The delayed onset of winter is a bad omen for the species.
Because of retreating pack ice, the bears must swim longer distances to find ice platforms from which they can hunt. Scientists say that many bears have drowned during these lengthy swims. The U.S. Geological Survey said that the melting ice may be also be forcing the bears to move onto land. On land, food supplies are scarce. The U.S. Department of the Interior is worried that the polar bear population will disappear. It has proposed officially listing the bears as a threatened species.
Fortunately for us, the threat to the polar bear population was not evident during our trip. We had 27 sightings on our first day alone. Later in the trip, were lucky enough to come across another mother and her cub near the edge of a small pond. The cub was using its front legs to break the ice. He was no doubt imitating the action of adult bears hunting seals. He also practiced walking on ice that, in some places, is just one-half-inch thick. He must master this balancing act by the time he reaches his full weight of up to 1,700 pounds. At times, he playfully slid across the pond on his chest, his four legs splayed.
The cub, and perhaps the future of its species, was skating on thin ice. But that day, he was only concerned with the immediate, joyful moments of the present.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.