POSTCARD | Polar Bears Svalbard

This photo was taken on a magically calm and sunny day in Spitstbergen / Svalbard, just north of mainland Norway back in 2007 during a three-month trip amongst the islands.

The polar bear on the left is the mother and the two bears on the right are her cubs. Given the size of the two cubs they are probably 2 to 3 years of age and not that far off being left by their mother to defend for themselves as young adults.

Polar bear encounters in the wild are tricky business.

Finding polar bears requires a good strategy and lots of patience. When you add in photography you also want good shooting conditions, which means high sun and good contrast – something you rarely get in Svalbard!.

Understanding the characteristics of the animal you are looking for goes a long way with this.

The strategy to finding polar bears is this: go to their primary habitat during summer, which is sea ice.

Why sea ice?

Seals haul out on sea ice and seals are the primary diet of polar bears. And in case you are wondering why polar bears are threatened by global warming, it is because of this very reason. No more sea ice, means no more seals hauling out, means no more food for polar bears.

Once you have found yourself a good few square kilometres of sea ice (the bigger the better), you then have to find a bear. This requires untold scanning using a high quality pair of binoculars, which just happen to be one of the best things you can invest in for serious wildlife spotting (so don’t skimp!).

A polar bear moving is the easiest animal to spot, while a polar bear lying down is the hardest. Polar bears are not white, they are in fact a distinct pale whitish yellow. This means that they do stand out in the landscape if you know what you are looking for.

It all takes patience and a lot of it. It is more miss than hit.

If you find a bear on sea ice, then chances are you will find more. On the day this photo was taken, we saw a total of 13 bears which was pretty amazing. This bear encounter above lasted for over 2-hours.  You can see the bears were clearly undisturbed by our presence, which made this encounter even more amazing.

The name of the game is to have an encounter with a polar bear with the least amount of disturbance to the actual animal.

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