The city of Churchill, Manitoba has many signs warning of ‘Polar Bear Alert – Stop, don’t walk in this area’. If you look beyond you’ll see the bleak and often frozen Hudson Bay and the endlessly flat tundra which holds the unchallenged title of being the ‘polar bear capital of the world’.
The bears roam around the platforms of ice in search of seals to hunt but come July time the ice begins to melt and the bears are forced to go ashore and survive by eating berries, seaweed, grasses and mosses. This is what brings them close enough for us humans to observe them and during the summer, Churchill’s Polar Bear Police have to remove around a hundred bears from the town.
Polar Bears have this air of being cuddly and soft but they are actually the largest land carnivores in existence and have the power to kill with a single whack of their paw. They can also run at 50kph, so perhaps it’s best not to get too close! If you’re planning a trip to watch these awesome marine mammals in action, it’s best to go later in the year and travel by tundra buggy, which is like a converted bus that travels along on giant balloon tyres high above ground level.
At the beginning of October, you’ll see around two hundred polar bears near town just waiting for the bay to freeze and this is when prime viewing season begins and temperatures drop below zero. As they are lean from their summer diet the males will spar with one another for hours throughout autumn while the females steer clear with their cubs. To watch a mother bear lying back on the snow, nursing her cubs is an amazing and touching scene.
2011-01-15 20:15:25
They're adorable! It's such a shame they could soon become extinct. :|
Answer correctly and win
funky points every day!
Q1 = 5 points
Q2 = 10 points
Q3 = 15 points
