Thought raccoons breaking into your garbage was bad? Imagine what it’d be like if it was polar bears!
Living in the Polar Bear Capital of the world is no easy task, especially during polar bear peak season in October and November each year.
Take Halloween, for example. Halloween in Churchill is no small event. In fact, it’s probably the world’s strangest Halloween celebration – and it’s not for fear of ghosts, witches, or monsters.
The festival of Halloween falls at the peak of polar bear season in Churchill, Manitoba. Just think about it – hundreds of pounds of chocolate, 300+ trick-or-treating children, and polar bears – not a good mix.
So for days prior to Halloween, Churchill’s Polar Bear Alert team work tirelessly to keep bears out of the area. The team is made up of wildlife conservation officers who are on-call 24 hours a day during peak polar bear season to deal with any bear issues in and around town.
First, they try to scare off any polar bears by lighting ear-deafening cracker shells. The loud noises usually scare off the bears. Rubber bullets are also sometimes used.
When cracker shells don’t work or there are certain bears who are causing a lot of trouble around town, the bears are trapped using culver traps. The cylindrical cages are baited with seal meat or oil and rigged to close once the bears step inside. Easily transportable, the bears are tranquilized and the traps are moved.
Caught bears are taken to the Polar Bear Jail or compound where they’re held for up to 30 days or until the ice on the Hudson Bay freezes. The jail has 30 cells to hold all the inmate bears. They’re given ice and snow but once most bears realize where they are, they go into a hibernation state of sleep. The bears aren’t fed but have more than enough fat reserves to tie them over until they’re released. The reason they’re not fed is because one year when the bears were fed, they came back looking for more food.
Once the bears have “done their time” or the ice on the Hudson Bay freezes, they’re driven or flown out via helicopter to the beaches of the Hudson Bay and released.
As the evening of trick-or-treating begins, armed firemen, volunteers, policemen, and rangers from Churchill set up a perimeter around the town while the town’s 300 children go door-to-door. Children are forbidden to wear white costumes to prevent confusion or panic. Helicopters circle above as an extra safety precaution for the children.
If you’re interested in witnessing all the polar bear madness first-hand in Churchill, Natural Habitats Adventure (www.nathab.com/polar-bear-tours) has offered polar bear tours to Churchill for over 20 years. Read on to Part 3 discover what it’s like to go polar bear watching in Churchill aboard a 15-foot tundra buggy.
Continue to Polar Bears in Churchill, Part 3: Polar Bear Watching on a Tundra Buggy in Churchill.
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