The Ice Bears - Part 1

I have finally edited enough shots from our recent trip to the Arctic that I can begin posting multiple images on the blog instead of doling them out one-by-one on Facebook! 

Does this snow make my nose look big?

I am starting with the main reason we did the trip -  Polar Bears. I ended up with dozens of photos of these majestic animals so will compose several posts concentrating on the big bruins as well as other posts showcasing the many other animals, birds and landscapes we encountered on our journey to the far north.  

 After a great deal of research we decided to travel with Lindblad/National G to the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, to experience the Arctic environment. In retrospect it was a great decision and a trip I would do again in a second if I had the chance. By the end of our journey we had encountered a total of 23 polar bears, in various locations, up close and far away. Some of the animals were curious about our vessel while others moved off as soon as they realized we were in their territory.

The captain, crew and expedition guides were always extremely respectful of the animals we saw and  did not hesitate to back away if there was any indication we were disturbing the wildlife.

Land Bear

 The bear above was the first one we saw and by far the most dangerous. You will notice he is the only one I photographed on land, as opposed to sea ice. We were actually hiking on shore when one of the lookouts spotted him coming our way. He was moving fast and headed directly for us, no doubt curious about the odor of so many humans close by. He was enough of a threat that one of the guides was forced to shoot a flare gun - twice - in his direction before he turned away. There are very few images of this animal as we were being herded very quickly into the Zodiaks and were concentrating on getting everyone off shore and back to the ship before he decided to resume his inspection of us. We were told that even though the guides train regularly in case of just such an event, none of them had ever been in that situation before. They obviously hated the idea of shooting even the flare gun at the animal although it beat the alternative of firing one of the rifles each guide was required to carry. Before each trip to shore a number of lookouts were sent out for several miles in each direction to scout for danger but in this case the bear had not been spotted ahead of time despite the many eyes looking.

Getting out of the water

Polar Bears are considered Marine Mammals as they live most of their lives at sea. They did not hesitate to step off the ice floes and into the water to get from point "a" to point "b".

This bear walked by a number of areas of calm water, allowing me to capture many shots of him with his reflection.

Curious Bear

 The most curious bear we saw was this one, above. He came right up to the edge of the ship and looked up at us before moving off to explore a second bear in the area as seen in the last photo.

Checking out the competition