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Encounters between man and beast do not always end so well. Three days after Halloween, Oilworker Al Highfield shot and killed a bear that was trying to break into his house. Another citizen of Churchill stepped out of his kitchen for a moment, leaving a steak on the stove. When he got back he found a polar bear making hash of the meat. The bear totally wrecked the kitchen before fleeing.
Few people have been killed by polar bears. Though caged bears can be a menace, those in the wild rarely make unprovoked attacks on humans. The last death in Churchill occurred 13 years ago, when a 19-year-old Eskimo youth, trailing a bear, apparently approached too close and stirred the creature to rage.
When their young men went on their first bear hunt, Eskimos regarded it as a test of manhood. Some Churchill residents still feel that the best response to an intruding bear is to get a gun and kill it. But now most will pick up the telephone and call the conservation officer, letting him drive the animal out of town with horns, sirens or the noise of harmless explosives. Bears, in fact, have become a growth industry in Churchill. Along with beluga whales and assorted bird life (snow geese, rock ptarmigans, even an occasional rare Ross's gull), they are an important tourist attraction, luring visitors from all over Canada, the U.S., Europe and Japan. Having seen more than 1,800 bears in his 18 years in the area, Chartier practically guarantees anyone taking his tours a chance to photograph bears—at least with a long lens. Inveterate explorers that they are, the beasts are usually drawn by curiosity to Chartier's specially reinforced tour vans and "tundra buggies."
Churchill's new tolerance is good news to wildlife biologists. At present, the polar bear population appears stable. There are probably more than 20,000 bears in the Arctic countries, half of them in Canada. Hunting is banned in Manitoba, as it is in the Soviet Union and Norway. There are also restrictions in other Canadian provinces and Alaska. Even so, the animals could be threatened if the search for oil and minerals continues to encroach on their habitat.
The loss of such magnificent creatures would certainly be a blemish on man's record as the planet's custodian. Thalarctos maritimus is the very symbol of the Arctic, an animal brilliantly adapted to cope with the world's most extreme environment. The bears, though usually lethargic, can run for short bursts at more than 40 m.p.h., and have been seen swimming hundreds of miles offshore. Yet at birth they are nearly helpless: without fur, blind, deaf, no bigger than a small rabbit. For 20 months or more, the cubs follow faithfully after their mother, learning all the techniques of hunting and survival. One astonishing trick: when a polar bear is stalking prey, it will often cover its black nose with its paw in order to blend totally into the white ice, making the surprise complete. Biologists originally thought that the bears were true nomads, wandering all over the Arctic. But tagging and radio tracking suggest that at least some belong to separate population groups and remain restricted to well-defined areas.