Over the past few weeks the Hudson Bay polar bears have been featured in numerous news broadcasts on TV, radio and also in newspapers around the world.
Here are some of the TV news stories that we’ve managed to round up. These videos capture everything from the recent sightings of cannibalism in polar bears, the new Assiniboine Park Zoo polar bear rescue shelter and exhibit, and how Inuit communities in the North are affected by decreased polar bear hunt quotas. Please note that the images used in some of these news stories are graphic.
The Ice Bear Project is not-for-profit arts organization led by animal sculptor Mark Coreth. Mark creates life-sized ice sculptures of polar bears and displays them in major cities worldwide to symbolize the fragility of the Arctic.
The most recent Ice Bear Project is currently featured for the next few weeks in Copenhagen. The Ice Bear gives the people of Copenhagen and the delegates of the UN Climate Conference the opportunity to experience an element of the Arctic, a region that is being affected by climate change faster and more severely than almost anywhere else on the planet.
What is really cool about the Copenhagen Ice Bear sculpture is that it is 1.8 metres high – exactly the same height as the average thickness of the floating sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. As the Ice Bear stands in Copenhagen and continues to melt from the warm temperatures and from people touching the ice (essentially showing how important human influence is on the environment), an inner skeleton shows. This is a very powerful message.
Frontiers North supported the project by providing Mark in-kind opportunities to experience Churchill’s wild polar bears this November. We coordinated with PBI for Mark to join a PBI VIP Buggy day, on which he was able to spend time on our Tundra Buggy One. As well, we sent out Mark on a private Tundra Buggy Adventure / Luggage Run with Simon Gee, FNA Churchill Logistics Coordinator, who captured this image of Mark on the Buggy.
The video below is a live stream of the Ice Bear sculpture in Copenhagen! This is also featured on the home pages of our Tundra Buggy and Frontiers North websites.
Here are a few more great images captured on our Tundra Buggy adventures as the season began to wind down. There is nothing better than viewing the bears on snow and ice.
If you have some great polar bear images captured on your adventure with us and would like to share them, please feel free to email them to: website@frontiersnorth.com and we will blog them!
The Churchill Wildlife Management Area and Wapusk National Park are known for their amazing polar bear viewing. However, we always like to remind people that there are also other fantastic wildlife viewing opportunities to be seen in these areas, such as arctic hare and arctic fox. The tundra sunsets are also beautiful sights to view and photograph.
Check out some images below that Tundra Buggy driver, Marc Hebert, captured.
We had the opportunity to host 19 adults and 20 youth from the 1st Westminster Scout Group in Humboldt, Saskatchewan at the end of September on one of our Tundra Buggy adventures. They had a blast with their driver Dave and spotted some great wildlife, including polar bears. Their adventure story and the image below will be featured in the national Scouting Life Magazine.
A few days ago, our GM John had the opportunity to speak to BBC World Service Newshour about the late freeze-up of the Hudson Bay and how it is affecting the polar bear population. Take a listen to the radio clip below. As always, we welcome your comments so please feel free to provide us your thoughts on this.
When the weather is right, guests are treated to not only a spectacular dogsledding adventure, but great birding as well. It is not uncommon to be visited by Whisky Jacks in the northern sections of the boreal forest near Churchill. Here are some great images from one of our adventures in November.
On our Tundra Buggy adventures, we host PBI In-field Ambassadors to even further educate our guests with presentations about polar bears and conservation. 2009 marked the fourth year of the program and again we had another great group of Zoo Keepers join us in Churchill.
Here are some images of the In-field Ambassadors presenting to guests on our Buggies.
In November 2008 Tom Rugg travelled with us as a special guest of PBI’s and serenaded our Tundra Buggy Lodge guests at Cape Churchill in Wapusk National Park. Tom has an internet hit with The Polar Bear Song, written to raise awareness of climate change among children. Listen here as he talks to BBC Radio Wales about his travels with us. You can also watch Tom’s teacher polar bear video diary of his experience!
