Young polar bear, Barter Island, Alaska. Canon 1Ds Mark III, 16-35mm, (16mm), 1/50 sec @ f/7.1, ISO 200
Polar bears congregate along Alaska’s north coast when the scent of the bowhead whale carcasses show up from the autumn indigenous whale hunts. Barter Island, located just off the Alaska mainland, is bordered by the Beaufort Sea to the north. It is growing in popularity as a destination to view polar bears, an amazing experience indeed to see these animals in the wild. With the current state of the polar bear under much debate and concern regarding climate change, the bears are the subject of much study. Many of the bears have been darted from the air, collared with radio collars, ears tagged, painted with large black numbers on their fur, gums tatooed, and other sort of research marking tools that have taught the polar bears quite well to dislike helicopters. This young bear is quite curious and approached our small bus for a closer look. Heavy winds for the last few days, gusting to 50mph, have made both photography and bear traffic minimal.
Hey Patrick,
I’ve been meaning to get up there for years – but never made it so far. Now with the polar bears listed on the ESA, there’ll be a ton of new rules in the near future regarding ‘harassment’, and how close one can be, etc, etc. Rules written, of course, by the same folks who dart, collar, tag, tattoo and paintball the bears.
I hear this year the bears arrived before the first whale was killed, indicating the bears are pretty conditioned to showing up . and then causing problems in the village, etc, if there’s no whale bones around. I’l be surprised if this doesn’t change sometimes soon, and the bones are taken out to sea and dumped, as they are in places like Barrow.
Cheers
Carl