Churchill on track for record number of polar bear reports this season, conservation officers say

Conservation officers in Churchill, Man., say they're on track to respond to a record number of calls about polar bears wandering into the Hudson Bay town or just outside of it this season.

As of Aug. 15, Manitoba Conservation officers had responded to 76 calls about polar bears in and around Churchill and were forced to move three of the large carnivores into a holding facility east of the town.

That compares with 18 calls by the same date a year ago. And officers didn't have to capture, sedate and house any of those bears in the former military facility — a catch-and-release program that normally does not start until October.

"There are so many polar bears in and around the town of Churchill we are looking at record numbers this year and that's heavily influenced by where the last ice in the Hudson Bay melts," said Churchill conservation officer Chantal Maclean, speaking in her office on Tuesday.

During a regular spring, the estimated 616 polar bears who live along the western coast of Hudson Bay make landfall in many locations across several hundred kilometres of coastline, stretching from southeastern Nunavut to northwestern Ontario.

Only half the bears tagged by scientists usually spend their summers in Manitoba, Maclean said.

"This year, every single bear that we have tagged, except for four down in Ontario and one in Nunavut, is sitting right in Manitoba, which likely means we are going to have a very busy bear season."

Churchill, unofficially known as the polar bear capital of the world, sits in the middle of a natural polar bear corridor. To the east of the town lies Wapusk National Park, which protects denning areas for the bears.

To the west of the town is Button Bay, which is often the first patch of Hudson Bay's western coastline to freeze up every fall.

During a normal season, polar bear reports pick up in the fall, allowing bears who are placed in the holding facility to remain there until freeze-up.

The three bears captured already this summer will be released after 30 days, Maclean said. The most recent guest in the facility was a 910-pound creature captured west of the town of Churchill on Aug. 8.

Conservation officers said they first try to shoo problem bears away from town in the direction of Button Bay, using shotgun shells packed with soft projectiles akin to bean bags or the noise and wind from helicopter rotors. 

If that doesn't work, polar bears are sedated and then driven or flown to the holding facility. It took 10 people to move the bear sedated on Aug. 8 into the flatbed of an RCMP truck.

"We are a predator coexistence program. It's a bad day for us when we have to go hands-on with a bear," Maclean said, adding she and her colleagues only move bears when they are in danger of becoming habituated to people or their food, or otherwise pose a threat to people, property or themselves.

"Down in Charleswood, where I'm from, you have a white-tailed deer walking down the street. Up here, you look out the window and you might see an 800-pound bear trying to get into your neighbour's window."

Minutes after she uttered those words, a call came in about a polar bear spotted by the beach behind Churchill's municipal complex. The previous week, a mother and her cub were observed swimming in the direction of three teens who were wading into Hudson Bay, said Ian Van Nest, the manager of Manitoba Conservation's Polar Bear Alert Team.

He and Maclean jumped into their trucks and made the short drive to the beach, where lifelong Churchill resident Alex Bennett said he spied a bear on the rocks.

He said bear sightings are so common this year, he can't enjoy the summer. 

"We used to go down to the Flats and have a picnic, you know? You can't even [expletive] do that any more, there's so many [expletive] bears," he said.

Van Nest and Maclean, however, could not locate the creature. Carrying shotguns, they walked on to the beach just to make sure no apex predators were hiding behind rocks.

Back in his truck, Van Nest said his team is monitoring the progress of seven bears along the coast further to the east. As he drives in that direction, a cluster of vehicles full of rubber-necking tourists parked on the side of the road serves as a telltale sign at least one of those bears is nearby.

About 50 metres between the road and the bay, a roughly 440-pound bear is sunning herself on a rock. The tourists are behaving, remaining in their vans and pickup trucks. One has a camera with a telescopic lens as wide as a frisbee.

"We're for sure shaping up to be quite the season," Van Nest said. "We're going to have lots of calls, and it's only going to pick up in October and November."