Churchill, Man., on track for record number of polar bear reports this season, conservation officers say | 24CA News

Conservation officers in Churchill, Man. say they’re on observe to reply to a document variety of calls about polar bears wandering into the Hudson Bay city or simply exterior of it this season.

As of Aug. 15, Manitoba Conservation officers had responded to 76 calls about polar bears in and round Churchill and had been compelled to maneuver three of the massive carnivores right into a holding facility east of the city.

That compares with 18 calls by the identical date a 12 months in the past. And officers did not should seize, sedate and home any of these bears within the former navy facility — a catch-and-release program that usually doesn’t begin till October.

“There are so many polar bears in and around the Town of Churchill we are looking at record numbers this year and that’s heavily influenced by where the last ice in the Hudson Bay melts,” Churchill conservation officer Chantal Maclean mentioned, talking in her workplace on Tuesday.

During a daily spring, the estimated 616 hundred polar bears who stay alongside the western coast of Hudson Bay make landfall in lots of areas throughout a number of hundred kilometres of shoreline, stretching from southeastern Nunavut to northwestern Ontario.

Only half the bears tagged by scientists normally spend their summers in Manitoba, Maclean mentioned.

“This year, every single bear that we have tagged, except for four down in Ontario and one in Nunavut, is sitting right in Manitoba, which likely means we are going to have a very busy bear season.”

Churchill, unofficially often known as the polar bear capital of the world, sits in the course of a pure polar bear hall. To the east of the city lies Wapusk National Park, which protects summer time denning areas for the bears.

To the west of the city is Button Bay, which is usually the primary patch of Hudson Bay’s western shoreline to freeze up each fall.

During a traditional season, polar bear reviews decide up within the fall, permitting bears who’re positioned within the holding facility to stay there till freeze up.

The three bears captured already this summer time shall be launched after 30 days, Maclean mentioned. The most up-to-date visitor within the facility was a 910 pound creature captured west of the Town of Churchill on Aug. 8.

Conservation officers mentioned they first attempt to shoo downside bears away from city within the course of Button Bay, utilizing shotgun shells full of comfortable projectiles akin to bean baggage or the noise and wind from helicopter rotors. 

If that does not work, polar bears are sedated after which pushed or flown to the holding facility. It took 10 individuals to maneuver the bear sedated on Aug. 8 into the flatbed of an RCMP truck.

“We are a predator coexistence program. It’s a bad day for us when we have to go hands on with a bear,” Maclean mentioned, including she and her colleagues solely transfer bears when they’re in peril of turning into habituated to individuals or their meals or in any other case pose a menace to individuals, property or themselves.

“Down in Charleswood, where I’m from, you have a white-tailed deer walking down the street. Up here, you look out the window and you might see an 800-pound bear trying to get into your neighbour’s window.”

Minutes after she uttered these phrases, a name got here in a few polar bear noticed by the seashore behind Churchill’s municipal advanced. The earlier week, a mom and her cub had been noticed swimming within the course of three teenagers who had been wading into Hudson Bay, mentioned Ian Van Nest, the supervisor of Manitoba Conservation’s Polar Bear Alert Team.

He and Maclean jumped into their vans and made the quick drive to the seashore, the place lifelong Churchill resident Alex Bennett mentioned he spied a bear on the rocks.

He mentioned bear sightings are so frequent this 12 months, he cannot benefit from the summer time. 

“We used to go down to the Flats and have a picnic, you know? You can’t even [expletive] do that any more, there’s so many [expletive] bears,” he mentioned.

Van Nest and Maclean, nevertheless, couldn’t find the creature. Carrying shotguns, they walked on to the seashore simply to make certain no apex predators had been hiding behind rocks.

Back in his truck, Van Nest mentioned his staff is monitoring the progress of seven bears alongside the coast additional to the east. As he drives in that course, a cluster of autos stuffed with rubber-necking vacationers parked on the facet of the street serves as a telltale signal no less than a type of bears is close by.

About 50 metres between the street and the bay, a roughly 440 pound bear is sunning herself on a rock. The vacationers are behaving, remaining of their vans and pickup vans. One has a digital camera with a telescopic lens as extensive as a frisbee.

“We’re for sure shaping up to be quite the season,” Van Nest mentioned. “We’re going to have lots of calls and it’s only going to pick up in October and November.”