A Time to Ponder

Back in Winnipeg and with a few hours to myself I am now able to sit at a computer, reflecting on my first tour in Churchill and catch up on the blog.



I couldn't have asked for a more perfect first trip to Churchill.  My group was a delightful bunch of folk, all from different regions of the world - Australia, UK and USA. I escort them to and from Winnipeg therefore I flew back with them yesterday evening and together we shared our final dinner together.

OK, now back to the mum and cub/cub down/male lurking about at L5 (Churchill garbage holding facility).

(Tristan, one of my guests has offered to share one of his photos of this incident which he said he could get to me by Thursday which I will immediately post on the blog)



It is really important to act fast when a polar bear is sighted in the area close to town which is protected and monitored closely by the conservation officers of Churchill.  However as soon as we arrived on scene, what we observed confused us a little.

Obviously mum and her two cubs were hanging around L5 and the more rambunctious cub of the two decided to step into the calvurt trap which closed immediately behind it.  These traps are set around the outskirts of town to capture bears who are wondering dangerously close to town.

The cub inside the trap was not happy therefore it let out numerous distress calls which must have attracted a male bear who had been lingering around the area over the past few days.  We arrived just as the big but scrawny male bear approached the mum and cub.  Usually in this circumstance mum would take her cub quickly away from this scene however having her other cub captured in the trap, she was not going anywhere. 

Our arrival put a barrier between the male and mum and cubs.   Since we (the humans) had created this garbage dump, placed the trap there in the first place, us interferring at this stage, to me was ok.  In the wild it is natural for male polar bears to hunt down cubs for food.

Now the disturbing thing is, it looked as though mum and the cub beside her was protecting a 3rd cub who looked life-less and dead as it lay on the ground.  Rhonda, our bus driver called in to her head office...

"mum and cub at L5, another cub in trap and a 3rd cub down, male bear near by and likely to be threatening" As she was calling this in, I had my binnoculars keenly poised on the 'cub down'. Something just did not look right.  The size of it looked much smaller than the cub next to mum, the coloration was not the off-white, cream of a typical polar bear and the pads of the feet did not have the mass amounts of fur around it.  It looked like a soft toy polar bear!  Rhonda looked closely and agreed, then jumped straight back on the radio and made the correction..."No cub down, it is a soft toy'.



It did not take long for the conservation officers to arrive on scene. They immediately asked us to leave as they dealt with the situation.  Later in the day we were informed that mum was tranquilized and along with her two cubs were taken to jail where they would share a large cell together, given water and were first on the list to be released by helicopter 30 km inland  The male bear was scared out of the area with cracker shells which will keep him at bay for abit. ..... A typical day in Churchill really.

My guests and I shared special moments over the past 5 days while on the Tundra.  A curious young female bear flirted amongst the few buggies that were out, at times placing her large plate-sized paws on the sides of the buggy and glanced up at us with her beady, black eyes.  An older male paired up with a younger male and sparred beside us. I was surprised as it is quite early in the season for sparring. Male bears play fight with eachother getting prepared for the physical months ahead when they are finally on the ice hunting seal.  It is also a time where they can sus eachother and the competition out for when the spring arrives it is time for males to show their dominance and win the hearts of another female to mate with.



And during all this, Dean has settled in the kitchen routine at the Tundra Inn.  He now is the breakfast and lunch cook and if ever there is a spare moment he will be asked to fix the odd thing around the hotel.  I return to Churchill tomorrow without a group.  During this time I hope to whip Dean away and show him Churchill.  I'm hoping to be with him when he sees his first Polar Bear.....I do love to watch the reaction when people witness this magnificent creature for the first time.

More to come.....