Thursday, January 24, 2008
Do Polar Bears Get Lonely?
It was a couple of months (or more) ago that my Mum sent me this email with these photos of a polar bear playing with sled dogs up in Churchill Manitoba. Since then, I’ve been using the photos as desktop pictures on my PC at work, alternating them every other week or so. The other day I was experiencing some down time (read: I was bored) so I made a screen saver and power point slide show with them.
The more I look at them, the more I have to wonder, what was this bear thinking? I’m actually more curious about the bear’s state of mind than the dogs’. I have dogs, I kinda know how their brains work. If they feel threatened, as these dogs no doubt did at first glance, then they’ll bark and growl and do whatever necessary to scare off a threat.
Once a dog realizes someone/thing is not a threat, then they’re curious and always happy to make friends. Whether person, squirrel or bear I suppose.
This bear appeared every day for a week to come play with these dogs. The owner of the dogs of course first thought that his team was about to be eaten by a hungry bear, and why he’d take out his camera to photograph the carnage is beyond me. He lucked out though, and got likely the only photos ever taken, ever to be taken, of a polar bear making friends with a dog.
Despite the plight of polar bears in recent years of early ice melt and food sources becoming scarce, this one appears to have been well fed. If she had been hungry I have no doubt she’d have eaten the dogs. Why then did she decide to come and play? Why did she return every day for a week? And what happened to her after that? Where’d she go?
Was she orphaned and lonely? She doesn’t seem full grown, she’s sort of small. Did her mother die, or send her off on her own too early? Did she move on somewhere else with more opportunity, more food, a mate, or maybe other dogs to play with? Did she die hungry and alone? The fate of too many polar bears unfortunately.
Why does it eat at my mind, wondering what happened? Why does it matter? It’s a bear, playing with a dog. Hugging a dog it seems even. And the dog reciprocates willingly, even stretching up to sniff the bear’s muzzle, as dogs do with other dogs, as if to say “hey, you’ve got a bit of seal meat stuck in your teeth there…”
When the bear did not return one day, did the dogs wonder where she was? Did they sit and wait for her? Did they pine for their lost friend?
Bears are special to me, my totem, my spirit animal. I have a rather large collection of stuffed bears, of every shape, size and colour. Quite a lot of them are polar bear like. My sister and brother-in-law even “adopted” a polar bear for me from the WWF as a gift a few years ago. One of my most treasured gifts ever. They also gave me a stuffed polar bear to go with it, which after we saw the movie The Golden Compass, I’ve been thinking about making him some armour and changing his name to Gandalf.
The other evening we were watching a programme on TV about global climate change, and the presenter was up in the Arctic with a research team when they tranquilized a polar bear. The team knelt on the ground next to the bear, which was paralyzed from the tranquilizer, but still conscious. His eyes darted back and forth, tongue flicking out now and again, drool collecting on his chin. I envied the presenter the opportunity to be that close; to be able to touch the bear; feel the warmth and rare vulnerability, smell it, tangle his fingers in its fur. I envisioned myself in that situation, would I have rubbed the bear’s tummy, like I do with my dogs? Would I have hugged it, lied down with it, talked to it? I have no doubt I would have. I also have no doubt that I’d have cried at the beauty of it.
As I cry at the wonder of this young bear who decided to make friends with a sled dog.
¶ 6:46 PM 
The more I look at them, the more I have to wonder, what was this bear thinking? I’m actually more curious about the bear’s state of mind than the dogs’. I have dogs, I kinda know how their brains work. If they feel threatened, as these dogs no doubt did at first glance, then they’ll bark and growl and do whatever necessary to scare off a threat.
Once a dog realizes someone/thing is not a threat, then they’re curious and always happy to make friends. Whether person, squirrel or bear I suppose.
This bear appeared every day for a week to come play with these dogs. The owner of the dogs of course first thought that his team was about to be eaten by a hungry bear, and why he’d take out his camera to photograph the carnage is beyond me. He lucked out though, and got likely the only photos ever taken, ever to be taken, of a polar bear making friends with a dog.
Despite the plight of polar bears in recent years of early ice melt and food sources becoming scarce, this one appears to have been well fed. If she had been hungry I have no doubt she’d have eaten the dogs. Why then did she decide to come and play? Why did she return every day for a week? And what happened to her after that? Where’d she go?
Was she orphaned and lonely? She doesn’t seem full grown, she’s sort of small. Did her mother die, or send her off on her own too early? Did she move on somewhere else with more opportunity, more food, a mate, or maybe other dogs to play with? Did she die hungry and alone? The fate of too many polar bears unfortunately.
Why does it eat at my mind, wondering what happened? Why does it matter? It’s a bear, playing with a dog. Hugging a dog it seems even. And the dog reciprocates willingly, even stretching up to sniff the bear’s muzzle, as dogs do with other dogs, as if to say “hey, you’ve got a bit of seal meat stuck in your teeth there…”
When the bear did not return one day, did the dogs wonder where she was? Did they sit and wait for her? Did they pine for their lost friend?
Bears are special to me, my totem, my spirit animal. I have a rather large collection of stuffed bears, of every shape, size and colour. Quite a lot of them are polar bear like. My sister and brother-in-law even “adopted” a polar bear for me from the WWF as a gift a few years ago. One of my most treasured gifts ever. They also gave me a stuffed polar bear to go with it, which after we saw the movie The Golden Compass, I’ve been thinking about making him some armour and changing his name to Gandalf.
The other evening we were watching a programme on TV about global climate change, and the presenter was up in the Arctic with a research team when they tranquilized a polar bear. The team knelt on the ground next to the bear, which was paralyzed from the tranquilizer, but still conscious. His eyes darted back and forth, tongue flicking out now and again, drool collecting on his chin. I envied the presenter the opportunity to be that close; to be able to touch the bear; feel the warmth and rare vulnerability, smell it, tangle his fingers in its fur. I envisioned myself in that situation, would I have rubbed the bear’s tummy, like I do with my dogs? Would I have hugged it, lied down with it, talked to it? I have no doubt I would have. I also have no doubt that I’d have cried at the beauty of it.
As I cry at the wonder of this young bear who decided to make friends with a sled dog.
¶ 6:46 PM
