On Polar Bear Patrol in Kaktovik

On polar bear patrol in Kaktovik, big bear makes for tense moment 

Ruby Kaleak was at her part-time job on Kaktovik’s roving “polar bear patrol” Friday when a whispery call came over the VHF radio.

“Qanitchaq, nanuq,”  was all she could hear: arctic entryway, polar bear.

Ruby Kaleak heads out on polar bear patrol in Kaktovik, Alaska. Flora Rexford photo

Kaleak and her co-worker hopped in the Ford pickup they use when on patrol. Among their other equipment is a 12-gauge shotgun with beanbag and firecracker slugs to haze polar bears away from people in the Inupiat village of 300.

They found a house near the lagoon that they suspected the call might have come from. It was about 11 p.m. and dark.

“We parked and looked all over for bears,” Kaleak said. “I myself was about to jump out of the truck and go check inside the arctic entryway.”

Just then, she saw a shadow. From inside the entryway, the head of a polar bear popped up. Its body filled the doorframe.

“I was shocked. It was humongous,” Kaleak said. “Just the neck and head was half the size of me, and I’m 5 (feet) 2 (inches ).”

Follow the link for the rest of the story. 

"There's a Nanuq Outside!"

From the Alaska Dispatch News:

"There's a nanuq outside!" Kaktovik woman chases polar bear from tent

Coffee warmed on the smokehouse stove as Marie Rexford, 51, began pulling on her socks to start the day.

... One sock on, one sock off, something made Marie look over her shoulder.

That's when she saw the outline of a paw pressed against the thick canvas tent, said Marie's daughter, Flora Rexford, recounting the scene. A polar bear was trying to shove and nose its way inside.

"There's a nanuq outside!” Marie cried. She reached for the rifle her son had brought to the windy shoreside camp the night before. 

... Marie, who is about 5 feet tall, stalked around the tent. "Where are you, bear?!" she shouted.
Startled, the animal began to walk toward the ocean.

“You better get out of here. If you come back, I’m going to shoot you,” Marie told the bear, according to her daughter. The more Marie talked, the faster the bear moved.

“She has kind of a scary voice,” the younger Rexford said in a phone interview.

And you thought your mornings were stressful. :)

Read the rest at the link. 

What Caliber Cell Phone..?

Winnipeg man wards off polar bear with cellphone

Cornered by a polar bear that had already swatted and bitten him, a desperate Garett Kolsun turned to the only device he could think of and thrust his cellphone into the raging bear's face, distracting it long enough for him to escape.

Kolsun is grateful to be alive today after his encounter with a polar bear in Churchill, Man., on Saturday. The Winnipeg man went to Churchill two weeks ago for a job, his first time in the northern town.

While walking to where he was staying around 1:30 Saturday morning, Kolsun noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

"As I looked over, I could see a polar bear charging me. It was running full tilt towards me," he said Monday, his voice still raspy from yelling. "So I turned to try to run to find someplace safe to go. But where I was there was no place to really go."

(snip) "So I turned on the bear and it just kept charging. It came up closer and I started yelling and screaming and trying to raise my arms up to keep the bear away from me as best I could," he said. "I kept running in circles and backwards and yelling, hollering for help and everything else."

Desperate Move

He ran up to a bakery, and tried kicking open the front door.

"At that point the bear was basically right on top of me," he said. "I was yelling and screaming, trying to keep it away from me. Throughout all this it had swatted at me a few times and it had bit me."

"So I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket, turned it on and the screen lit up," he said. "I turned it towards the bear, put it in his face and it stepped back."

It turned the tide.

"When it stepped back, luckily it knocked over a planter. It startled the bear and it turned its head. So when it did, I just ran."

There's more at the link, but you get the point.

Catchin' Some Rays

at the Alaska Zoo:

Every so often, he'd look around at us, and then lay back down. Can't be bothered with gawkers when the sun's out, don'tcha know.

Lunch at the Zoo

We all ate well, but this fellow seemed more hungry than most ...

Polar Bear Attack; Victim Survives

Polar Bear Attack in Churchill, Manitoba

  
These are pictures of an actual polar bear attack in the town of Churchill. They were taken while people watched helplessly.


Happily, reports from the local newspaper say that the victim will make a full recovery.

Vicious!