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WWF Polar Bear Expedition Diary

Margaret Williams, leader for WWF's Bering Sea & Kamchatka ecoregion, traveled to Chukotka, the northeastern most corner of Siberia on an expedition in April 2007. With several Russian and American colleagues, Margaret and her team traveled over 700 miles across the roadless, snow-covered Chukotka Peninsula to reach the small village of Vankarem, north of the Arctic Circle on the Chukchi Sea. The expedition is part of an ambitious effort to protect and study polar bears and address an increasing problem caused by climate change -- conflict between polar bears and humans.

Join Margaret on her journey across the vast and frozen tundra, and learn more about WWF's work in the Bering Sea & Kamchatka ecoregion.

Part 6: The Vankarem Cape
The recession of the ice has brought more and more walrus on shore, and over the last ten years, every fall, walruses have congregated on the Vankarem Cape, forming a "haul-out" just a half-mile from the village. Last fall some 20,000-30,000 animals were piled up there. No one has actually counted them all, but the Vankarem residents are certain the number is growing.

On this expedition, we learn more about the consequences of these changes for bears, walrus, and people in Vankarem: shorter periods for bears to forage, thereby forcing them to spend more time on land; lack of suitable habitat in shallow waters needed by walrus; and a shift in the behavior of both species, causing a confluence of factors that can threaten human life on the coast.

In 2003, two people were killed by polar bears in Reirkaipi, a coastal town to the west of Vankarem. A young girl was killed there in 2006. During this period in Vankarem, the walrus numbers on the cape explode every fall. These huge animals were are so numerous and frequently cause their own stampedes. In early winter, when the ice is re-forming and walruses leave the beach, up to 100 carcasses remain behind. These blubbery animals offer a perfect meal for wandering and hungry polar bears.

This year, Vankarem residents didn't want the bears coming so close to their village to dine on the leftover fatty feast. With WWF's help the hunters created a "polar bear patrol" - a group of six people who would take some pro-active steps to prepare for the arrival of the bears. As soon as the walruses departed, the polar bear patrol spent several days working to collect the remains of walruses killed in the stampedes. Using a tractor, they carted the carcasses six miles west of the village, anticipating that the bears would come from the west in the fall. In the end, they scattered some 80 walruses around selected sites -- and then they waited.

In mid-November, a truck driver alerted the patrol to bear tracks on the beach. The wave had begun. For the next three weeks, bears making their way along the coast stopped to graze on the carcasses at this so-called "feeding point" instead of proceeding to the village. At one time alone, Sergey and his team counted 96 bears feeding on the walrus. In total they estimated that 185 bears had been circulating with a six mile radius around the village.

Meanwhile, the polar bear patrol members stood watch in the village. If a rogue bear came too close to the houses, they used emergency warning flares and occasionally rifle shots to ward off the curious ice bears. By late December, when the ice had formed, the white bears had cleared out and Vankarem breathed a collective sign of relief; the patrol's work had been successfully completed. Not a single bear or human had been harmed! With this success WWF is working to expand the brigades to other villages such as Nutepelmen to the east and a larger town, Reirkaipi, to the west.

posted by World Wildlife Fund # 9:19 AM