Above a glistening ice pack in the Bering Sea, a helicopter stalks a polar bear, following paw prints in the snow. The bear suddenly appears as a hint of movement, white against white, padding its way across the ice. The helicopter descends, hovering over the frightened creature, and a shotgun slides out the window, firing a tranquilizer dart into the massive fur-covered rump. Minutes pass. The bear shows no effects. The helicopter drops for a second shot. This time the bear stands its ground, and the pilot, fearing the animal is about to lunge for the aircraft, abruptly noses the chopper skyward. He remembers how a 9-ft. bear once swiped at a helicopter's skids, shredding the pontoons.
But this bear finally staggers, then stretches out on the ice like a giant sheep dog. The helicopter sets down, and biologist Gerald Garner advances, kicking the bear in the behind to make sure it is immobilized. A swivel of its head and a flashing of teeth warn Garner that there is plenty of defiance left in this 272-kg (600-lb.) carnivore. With a syringe, he injects more drug. At last the head droops, and Garner can proceed. Around the bear's neck he fastens a vinyl collar containing a computer that will send data to a satellite, allowing scientists to keep track of the animal for a year. By the time Bear No. 6,886 raises its head, the helicopter is safely aloft.
Those tense moments were all in a day's work for Garner, one of a handful of hearty scientists, pilots and technicians taking part in a ground-breaking and hazardous $700,000 annual U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study of arctic polar bear populations. In an effort to follow the fate of more than 600 bears since the program's inception, the researchers have braved wind-chill factors of -59 degrees C (-75 degrees F), spartan living conditions, the constant threat of mechanical failures and the peril of being stranded on an ice pack. Last October two government biologists and a pilot vanished while tracking polar bears from the air. Officials believe their helicopter plunged under the ice, muffling their emergency signal. Other researchers have been rescued after a wakeful night on an ice floe.
"This is a very unforgiving environment," says mechanic Lester Hampton. "The biggest danger is getting caught in bad weather and running low on fuel. The second biggest danger is having a mechanical failure and having to put in out there. The third biggest danger is that after you do, the bears are going to come in and try to eat you up -- and that's if you don't freeze to death. If you go in that water, it's a done deal -- you're dead."
Two decades ago, big-game hunters, not researchers, pursued polar bears from the air and on the ground. A thousand carcasses a year littered the Arctic. The number of ice bears dwindled, and there was worldwide concern that the animal might be hunted to extinction. Today the bears' recovery is one of the success stories of conservation. Worldwide, polar bears now number as least 20,000, all of which are protected by a 1976 international agreement. Alaska has 3,000 to 5,000 polar bears, and only the state's Native Americans can hunt them -- and strictly for subsistence purposes.