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At the start of the winter over the last few years, due to the lack of sea ice, Polar Bears have become "trapped" on the peninsula where the Arctic village Vankarem is situated in the Russian Far East, waiting for the winter ice to freeze so the Bears can go out hunting after many months of starvation on land. Vankarem has about 150-200 inhabitants, and last year they had about 200 Polar Bears running around trying to find something to eat. That is not a good combination - two years ago a teenage girl was killed by a Bear.
What has happened is that, most likely the climate change has affected the area in eastern Russia in such a way that the winter sea ice is formed 3-4 weeks later than usual. The Bears are moving east along the shores and end up at Vankarem to wait for the winter ice so they can go out to hunt seals again.
In addition, the lack of sea ice may also be behind why the numbers of walruses turning up along the shore in recent years has increased massively. These walruses offer a great source of food to the bears and to alleviate their hunger, and to keep the Bears away from the village, hunters have been gathering dead walruses (died of natural causes) in big heaps.
WWF has paid a Bear patrol to chase out bears from the village and to gather walruses, until the sea ice is solid and the Bears disappear.
This is an excerpt from Tom's blog, which he wrote out in the Russian Far East:
"The Polar Bear migration is delayed at least 6-8 weeks this year, due to the lack of winter sea ice. Several hundreds of Polar Bears are missing - probably still stranded on Wrangel Island. The ocean is open and the winter ice should have been formed in October – is this climate change?
The summer drift ice has totally disappeared this year - and more than 65 000 walruses, probably closer to 75 000 have hauled-out on the mainland of Chukotka and Wrangel Island. They can no longer rest on the drift ice between feeding dives in shallow waters. The big shock for me is that thousands of walruses have died, and when we went along a 17 km long stretch of coastline, we counted more than 50 carcasses. There is no lack of food if the Polar Bears will manage to get ashore.
This year, the number of Polar Bears giving birth on the mainland of Chukotka will be virtually zero. This has never happened before - there are probably 20-30 females in a normal year. It’s all because there is no sea ice - no ice bridge to link Wrangel Island to the mainland. I am looking at the different ice charts over the Arctic. The pack ice has now reached Svalbard and the female polar bears have no problems in reaching the denning areas on land. In Chukotka, the ocean is still open, although there is a belt of drift ice along the coast here in Ryrkaypiu.
The ice bridge between Wrangel Island and the mainland has not been formed yet, which means that this year's Polar Bear migration is delayed several months. A large area of the Chuchi Sea is free from ice, normally it should have been frozen solid. Is it climate change or natural variation? You may believe what you want, but there seems to be enormous changes going on here in arctic habitat of Chukotka."
Tom speaks more extensively in his expedition blog.