Churchill: The Polar Bear Town

The town of Churchill in Canada sits on the western flank of the Hudson Bay, which is home to around 800 polar bears. The town was actually built on the migration route of bears, and many of the huge predators skirt the town’s borders.



When you walk out in the morning, on fresh snow, you would see that a bear has walked between the houses.

People of the town used to shoot at the bears, like anything, this led to worsening the conflicts between the two species. With a series of such attacks in the 1960s, leading to the death of a child, Churchill started developing a better system.

Now, when any bear is spotted by any person, they call 204-675-BEAR. The 24-hour hotline reaches the staff of the Polar Bear Alert Program, which has divided the area around Churchill into three concentric zones. If the bear is in the outer zone, the staff will try to scare it away by just firing cracker shells like shotgun rounds that explode with especially loud bangs. If that doesn’t work, they resort to rubber bullets or paintballs.

If the bear is found in the inner zone, where Churchill residents live and work, the staff will come to capture it. They achieve it with large cylindrical traps, with seal meat bait. If the bear enters, it triggers a metal screen, thus locking behind it. Immediately driving the bear away as the traps are mounted on the backs of trailers, to the Polar Bear Holding Facility.

This facility was built-in 1982, having space for about 28 inmates, and has held over 2,000 inmates up to date. It’s not a long-term prison. Families of Bear are shifted to another place as soon as possible. If they capture a bear lonely in the inner zone, they will keep it in jail for a month, to reduce the chance that once released, it’ll just go back to the same place. When the weather clears marking the right time, the wardens tranquilize the animals, bundle them in nets, strap them to helicopters, and airlift them to a site 70 kilometers north of Churchill. The bears get ear tag radios so that officials can track their movements, and lip tattoos so they can be identified in future years.

Polar Bear Ear Tags

The 'Polar Bear Alert Program' has been a tremendous success, for both bears as well as humans. From a site of a lethal conflict, Churchill has become a good symbol of co-existence—not to mention a major tourist destination for people keen to see and photograph the bears.

These conflicts can be managed. But they are the sign of a more unsettling trend. The Arctic is changing, affecting a lot of places even places like Churchill which lie further south. The ice bears depend on is disappearing. And the bears are struggling.
The reason for that? Yes, Global warming.



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