Wrangel Island Nature Reserve in the Arctic offered daring travellers with an adventure they will never forget after discovering something never seen before. As the Akademik Shokalskiy reached the island, the crew noticed what seemed to be a flock of grazing sheep. They would soon understand, though, how incorrect that notion was.
What they saw and experienced next will rewrite adventure travel experiences, expedition leader Rodney Russ told. Russ understood there would be no sheep on the distant Arctic island in the Chukchi Sea above Siberia, Russia.
They released the zodiacs for a closer look, and that’s the memory they’ll all have, Russ continued. There are no words to express how he feels. When the team pulled out their binoculars, they discovered they weren’t staring at a flock of sheep, instead a large group of polar bears. It was a rare sight to see more than 200 polar bears clustered on a mountainside.
Polar bears are typically solitary creatures, but these Arctic carnivores had collected in large numbers. Although it is not uncommon to see the normally solitary beasts grouped together on occasion, the sheer number of bears was a first. Capt. Rodney Russ, who has made multiple trips to Wrangel Island, said he has never seen more than a dozen polar bears in one spot before. It’s one of those days that neither he nor anyone else with him will ever forget, the expedition leader stated.
Some predict that, because of climate change, such encounters will become more regular. Wrangel Island has the largest number of polar bear dens on the planet, with up to 400 mother bears using the island to raise their young each winter, as per reports.
Over the last several years, the population density on the island in the summer has climbed to historic levels due to the disappearance of the ice packs that once encircled the island, forcing the bears to stay land-locked, according to the source. Although wonderful to behold, such massive polar bear groups are unusual, and they may indicate ecological stress.
The riddle of what produced the anomalous site, however, was shortly answered. So, what prompted such a big, unprecedented assembly of bears? Food is something that frequently draws people together. The gathering of more than 200 people was drawn together by the fragrance of a whale corpse that had drifted into the shallows. Nature had struck the supper hour.
After the big whale corpse came ashore, the bears congregated around it, giving an easy meal. Strong carnivores are generally violent against one another while feeding or hunting, but a whale corpse evidently offers plenty of food to go around, thus the uncommon get-together was calm, making it an even more stunning sight.
