Historic Sea Ice Losses, Polar Bear Encounters

After spending much of August searching for polar bears on ice near the archipelago of Svalbard, I’m not surprised by the latest headline on Polar Bears International’s most current electronic newsletter. The headline reads Historic Sea Ice Losses, Polar Bear Encounters.

During our nearly five week expedition looking for polar bears, and all other creatures of the arctic, we found no sea ice to photograph the bears the bears on. We did find bits and pieces of ice berg chunks that had broken off from the glaciers on shore but nothing even remotely close to the ice pack. Our guide said the ice pack was typically 18-20 miles off shore from the north end of Svalbard but this summer it was nearly eighty miles off shore. Needless to say it wasfor us but even worse for polar bears. Take a read of PBI’s electronic newsletter and find out more about the historic loss of sea ice and what you can do to help polar bears. Click on the link above or the image below to be taken to PBI’s newsletter.