Activity on the Tundra

The group I am with this year is much different from last year. Bill Winhall is here again but the other two are researchers. It is fun to be with people who are on the cutting edge of polar bear research. The amount of knowledge these guys have is amazing. Their knowledge ranges from care of bears in captivity to acoustic studies in maternal dens to how climate change has affected these animals.

The weather yesterday was beautiful, almost too beautiful. It has been pretty warm and sunny. I was here a week earlier last year and the bay was already starting to freeze and most of the ponds were frozen. We are hoping for snow this week because it makes for better pictures. Right now there is hardly any snow on the ground.

We saw 4 ptarmigan and lots of snow buntings. The bears were pretty active in the morning and one even came up to the buggy. It hopped up on the side of the buggy and was within an arms reach of me. It is so tempting to reach out and touch one, but I know better.

At the end of the day today we got to see two male polar bears sparring. I have never seen this before. It is pretty cool. It is easy for these bears to overheat in this weather so they usually just lay around. Also, they don’t want to burn too many calories because they may not get to eat for a while. These two boys just wouldn’t listen. They followed each other around most of the afternoon taking a break from sparing here and there. They even came over to the lodge together, investigated, and went and laid down right next to each other. Pretty neat.