Ottawa (dpa) – The polar bears gaze wistfully across the fragile freezing water in Hudson Bay. Soon, the ice should be strong enough to hold their gigantic bodies which can weigh up to half a ton.
With the advent of winter, when the bears can finally leave the bleak landscape of Wapusk National Park, in the far north of Canada’s Manitoba Province, the annual hunger stretch ends.
Winter means it’s time to board the ice floes and time to go hunting for their favourite food – seals.
Every winter, the bears face an uncertain future. How long will the Lords of the Arctic be able to fill their bellies this year? Will the ice hold long enough, or will it melt too early again? Will global warming once more see to it that thousands die for want of food?
These questions and others are currently being discussed at the United Nations Climate Conference in The Hague.
The “white robbers” of Manitoba, the southernmost polar bear territory in the world, have become the rallying cry for the gathering. Their picture appears on posters and brochures as victims of global warming.
The polar bear image is used to illustrate a report from the environmental organization World Wide Fund for Nature. Their experts warn that animals and plants and therefore the human population – especially those who live in the tundra regions of Canada and Russia – face enormous, far reaching changes from the greenhouse effect.
But not everyone sees it that way. Entrepreneurs in Churchill, a small but economically important city on Hudson Bay, welcome the longer trading season and shorter freeze period that allows merchant ships to ply the waters in previously forbidden months.
“Climatic changes are a double-edge sword,” said Gary Doer, Manitoba’s premier. “It helps the port. But all of us who treasure the beauty of our polar bears want the global warming to be stopped.”
Beginning in late autumn, the annual tourist pilgrimage begins to the little town founded by British fur traders 300 years ago at the mouth of the Churchill River. About 10,000 are drawn by the mystique and beauty of the bears every year.
From heated busses, “bear-proof” snowmobiles and helicopters, the visitors photograph the earth’s largest carnivores as they venture onto the ice, track down seals through breathing holes and lurk nearby for the pounce.
Canada’s Wildlife Service recently counted about 1,200 polar bears near Churchill. In a few years, temperature increases could halve the population. Even tourists notice the first signs of decline – the yellowed, dull coat hanging in folds on thin bodies as the creatures nervously await the freezeover after the prolonged summer fast.
In the good times, when the ice held, polar bears ended the winter season fattened with another 70 kilograms from seal feasting – enough to see them through the spare summer months. When allowed to hunt well into May, the majestic giants became sleek-coated, well-stocked pantries on legs.
But in the past 20 years, the ice has melted earlier, and in recent times has vanished a full three weeks ahead of the traditional melt. That’s why the Manitoba bears are on the average 10 per cent lighter than two decades ago, and have ten per cent fewer offspring.
Signs around Churchill carry “Polar Bear Alert” slogans, to warn visitors about stray bears.
The big effort in The Hague will be to push through the Kyoto declaration, aimed at reducing the global output of greenhouse gasses that are changing the climate.
If it doesn’t succeed, the Polar Bear Alert in Manitoba could become superfluous.
