Canada’s polar bears are on the verge of extinction. This is what is done to protect them.

The small town of Churchill, Manitoba, is located on the edge of Hudson Bay to the west.

Here, the ocean encounters the northern forest of the northern lights under the rippling northern lights. Further north, trees stop growing. The harsh landscape of the Canadian shield was covered by snow, and the constant wind cut through the willows.

There is no road to Churchill. It’s just a railway line and an airport runway with occasionally rented airplanes.

But this attracted tourists and scientists, as in a short time in the fall, the kings of the Arctic moved back to frozen sea ice through towns. Travelers come from all over the world, seeking one thing: lock the eyes with polar bears.

Bear

Polar bears wind around Churchill every fall, waiting for ice to form on the bay. The males first climb up the ice, roam and test the edges, eager to drive north, and eventually can look for the seal of the ring – their primary food source.

Scientists converge at Churchill because it is the easiest point to study polar bears. The bear here is the most studied bear in the world and the most photographed bear.

These Arctic beasts have a great personality: they play, hug and nap to make time pass. Men often rob, trying to get to know each other in order to prepare for the live battle in spring, during the mating season.

The bear stayed with his mother for two to three years, and was chased and forced to live alone. In the second year, they tested the waters – sometimes struggling to survive while learning to hunt and sustain themselves in the tundra.

“Vertical changes in ecosystems”

However, in recent years, the warming Arctic is melting habitat on ice, changing bear behavior: scientists from Polar Bear International say the formation of ice was two weeks later than in the 1980s and retreated two weeks before spring.

A month-long change in their environment forces bears to stay longer, closer to humans, and further away from seal nests in the north.

This is a change of change – caused by changing the climate, their parents and grandparents don’t have to face it. Yes, bears have been evolving since the bears and grizzlies diverged about 500,000 years ago, but the rate of change is alarming for scientists.

The head climate scientist at Flavio Lehner said the West Hudson Bay had a population of polar bears as low as 618 due to the decline in sea ice, accounting for about half of the past 1980s.

“That was very profound,” he said. “You have a hard time finding other places other than where you’re deforested in the Amazon, where you’re seeing such severe changes in the ecosystem caused by climate change.”

Reiner would not expect this to improve, beyond the population decline, and he also saw a shift in behavior. In his personal experience, mothers who found triplets were typical in the past and are rare now.

Polar Bear International scientists say these bears can only last comfortably on the land for 180 days. Elsewhere in the world, bears have been seen hunting birds and reindeer, but scientists say this high-protein diet will damage their kidneys and will not stop them from losing 2-4 pounds a day when on ice.

“The current rate of change is too fast,” explains John Whiteman, principal research scientist at PBI. “Polar bears will not be able to develop or adapt in time to be able to cope with our current sea ice loss rate.”

Whiteman expects polar bears to stick with it for the next 10 years or so in Churchill, but the timeline begins to blur for 20 to 30 years.

“We eventually know if we lost the sea ice, we lost the polar bear,” Whitman said.

Small town

Churchill has always been a small town on the cliff. It lives many lives – from home to Aboriginal people to trade posts to military towns to the world’s polar bear capital.

It attracts a special kind of person. You usually find happiness in loneliness. The people who come to work are semi-nominated tourism workers, or they are looking for change. They are guides and nature lovers, and seasonal workers attract this slower, simpler pace of life.

Others (such as Mike Spence, the town’s 30-year mayor, spent their lives here. Back when he was a kid, the town’s protection officers shot 20 to 22 bears a year. But as time goes by, the method changes.

“First of all, we respect wildlife,” he said. “In the indigenous world, polar bears are important – it is the top of their food chain. There is a lot of respect in this regard.”

The town is now facing a future where polar bear tourism season may disappear. During this time, the community will coexist with the bears while waiting for ice to form on the bay. And, as infrastructure also struggles to adapt to warm climates and melting permafrost, Spence is one of many people looking for solutions.

“We’re always challenged,” Spencer said. But the community also “usually finds a way.”

These solutions include commanding the port and railway line, which collapsed in 2017 due to flooding and lack of maintenance. Once it begins to reach its full potential, hopefully it will welcome more consistent work and resources from the community. Meanwhile, a new plan in the town grew microgreen, with new polar bear-resistant garbage containers scattered across the streets, all opening up a path for sustainable development for people and wildlife.

“What we need to do now is build on the young people we grow up here so that they can play a bigger role in building stronger communities and larger communities,” Spence said. “They see themselves what they have very valuable.”

Fight for the future

Wyatt Daley hooked his sled dog in the suburbs of town, preparing to lead the first of three trips of the day. Autumn is the peak tourist season, and he will spend a day among the trees in the northern forests, sliding on the snow.

Churchill relies on tourism for those who want to meet polar bears. To maintain their business, some travel companies are seeking to protect their future.

One of these ways is to promote other aspects of this wild north – Aurora dances 300 nights a year and annual beluga migrations held in the summer.

But what needs to be fueled is the economic engine: there is a desire to choose Churchill for families and the next generation, leaning towards Churchill and tasting everything it has to offer.

Wyatt Daley was one of the kids who begged parents to move south a few years ago. His father, Dave, who is a dog and travel company owner, would shake his head and tell him, “We have dogs, this is where we make a living.” That’s the end of that particular conversation.

He watched his friends and their family move away, especially in middle school, looking for “better opportunities.” After graduation, he traveled around the world through tourism in Australia and Cologne. But he went home. Back to the dog, then back to Churchill.

Churchill gave him “everything.” He said. He felt the connection with the dog, the land. His father is his best friend. This is exactly the idea that he wants his son Noah (now three) to have a friendly affinity for dogs.

“I remember being a little kid standing on the back ski with my father and traveling,” he said. “That’s what I’m most looking forward to now…I’m thinking about it.” [Noah] Come out and travel with me. ”

But this legacy is threatened by the warm Arctic, a weight the Daleys feel when they work to protect the northern lifestyle.

“It’s a terrible idea to think that one day polar bears might not be here,” Dave Daley said. “The Earth is a creature, and we are the people who step on it and change everything. I think we really need to deal with it and start taking it seriously.”