Polar bear off the starboard
Posted: Monday, November 05, 2007 8:20 AM
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On Assignment
By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent - enroute to the North Pole
DAY 3
Onboard Yamal, 2:14am.
I was jostled out of my bunk by the sound of the Yamal colliding with the first pieces of Arctic ice. BAM!
Those early smashes into the ice sound faintly similar to a mortar round exploding in the distance, or for those who’ve never heard the sounds of war, it resembles a percussionists’ kettle drum in the popular children’s musical piece "Peter and the Wolf."
It eventually sounds as if we’re inside the kettle drum, and not only can we hear it, everything on the ship is shaking.
NBC cameraman Dmitri Soloyvov and I are sharing a cabin. Initially, he slept through the collisions with ice, but by 2:35 a.m., he was awake.
We have a small porthole, so we could see outside what scientist call "frazzle ice." They’re the small pieces of frozen seawater, some about the size of a large backyard swimming pool, bobbing at the surface. The waves here are no more than two to three feet. Because of the ice in our way, the ships speed has dropped from 19 nautical miles per hour to 15.
Finally, we have arrived to what my imagination believed is the Arctic.
We’re officially at 78 degrees, 52 minutes and 42 seconds North and 40 degrees, 54 minutes, zero seconds East.
There’s ice as I’ve said, and the temperature has dropped, still, on deck, it’s warmer than I expected. Without the wind-chill, temperatures are hovering between 38 and 40 degrees. In the wind, of course, it’s a biting cold that feels well below freezing.
These are typical summer temperatures I’m told, but usually not this early in the season. I wonder if it’s another sign of global warming, but the experts we’re traveling with assure me science doesn’t work that way. You can’t pick a day or so out of the week and make conclusions. Data must be collected for decades to understand trends they say.
Eight hours after we first woke up, we’re now well into an area where most of the surface is covered by ice.
As we’re eating lunch, the intercom system on the ship crackles with word a crewmember on the bridge has spotted a polar bear off the starboard side of the ship.
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| Courtesy Jan Bryde |
| A mother polar bear and her two cubs walk across ice near the North Pole. |
A mad dash to the deck ensues. The surprise could not be more entertaining. A mother-bear with two cubs is trundling across the ice.
Polar bears taking a stroll
At first they are standoffish, but as our ship comes to a halt, it appears they are as interested in us, as we are in them. They wander toward the ship. One hundred plus passengers and crew, cameras and binoculars at the ready, all focus unblinking attention on the bears.
The trio of carnivores wander towards us: mother-bear leading the two cubs across so-called "first year" ice. It looks like a thin sheen on the surface, but "first year ice," as its name implies, is young ice, actually upwards of four feet thick. Ice that thick is ideally suited to support the weight of polar bears.
Polar bears are the top predator in the Arctic region. They’re the largest land based carnivore and scientist say they fear they’re in trouble.
Studies show global warming has reduced the ice cover in the arctic by about two weeks each year. Those are a critical two weeks say biologists. It’s time when bears hunt, mostly ring seals, and store up body fat for the long summer months. Studies have shown in the last 30 years, polar bears are smaller, weigh less, and mothers are giving birth to fewer cubs.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists say they fear if the warming trend continues, polar bears could be extinct by the end of the century.
