First things first, and in this vast Arctic ice land, you need to look for polar bears continuously, and use any evidence of them, to help find them. The two main things are to look for seals resting on the ice, and then fresh polar bear tracks in the snow.
Polar bears prefer to eat seals due to the blubber content of the seal. Since seal’s are air breathing mammals, they make holes in the ice and come up for air periodically. This is when the polar bear hopes to catch one, although it is easier said than done since the seals are aware of this. This only happens during the time of year when the fjords are frozen, which tends to mean in terms of wintertime when there is no sunshine at all for many months.
This is an amazing feat by a polar bear. To be able to find these seals in complete darkness is a testament to their skills. They roam the ice, sleeping on it, when the temperatures are negative 30 degrees F, listening and smelling for seals. They are successful enough at this over the eons that this is their primary source of food.
This seal is resting on the ice, alert for any danger
Fresh polar bear tracks
This is with the scanning with binoculars starts
The vastness of the area where polar bears room is obvious
This highly magnified view is what might be seen while scanning for them
On this different day this female was a little closer
This is her cub, following 30 yards behind
The female turned and walked towards us because she saw the above seal basking seal on the ice, but the seal was too wary and went back into the water through the hole it made in the ice
On another day we found her sleeping with her cub
She would look up every once in a while to check out something she smelled
She would give us a look as we took her photos from 40 yards away
Her cub checked us out also
Before she moved off she nursed her cub
Our final view of her before wandering off
Caribou Meal
Another animal on the menu is the caribou. The polar bears have adapted to this new prey since the warming Arctic due to global warming means the ice over the fjords freezer later and thaws earlier. Less ice means more open water, and the polar bear cannot catch a healthy seal in open water.
A carcass of a caribou this mother smelled from far away
Mother and cub eating the remains of this caribou
After 30 minutes of feeding the mother walked up this hill….
….with the cub right behind, stopping to give us one last look