East Coast crawling with polar bears since early March thanks to the pack ice

via polarbearscience
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The hot polar bear news right now is the large number of sightings of bears onshore in Newfoundland and Labrador – even the CBC is impressed.

Melrose nfld Polar Bear 02_2017 April 3_Brandon Collins shared photo The Packet

Photo taken by Brandon Collins in Melrose (on the Trinity Bay side of the peninsula) Monday 3 April 2017

All the bears have been brought to land by the abundant pack ice that’s been present off Labrador and northern Newfoundland (the territory of Davis Strait polar bears), which also killed a humpback whale that got trapped against the north shore (a not unusual event, apparently).

Mapping the reports of polar bear sightings since early March helped me get a handle on the total number of encounters: more than a dozen, it turns out. There have been a few bear sightings in this region every year recently but such high numbers are remarkable, especially so early in the season. When will it end?

Increased numbers of bears in the population is one explanation for increased numbers of encounters onshore at this time of year, although recent storms may have encouraged more bears than usual to come ashore in Newfoundland.

My picture annotated map and a list of sighting reports, with links, is below but stay tuned: this story may not be over yet.
Here’s a map of the sightings (photos acknowledged below):

East Coast March April polar bear sightings 2017

List of sightings, by date and location

All the encounters of bears that generated photos show well fed bears in good condition.

St. Anthony area, in Great Brehat (early March 2017, reported 1 April) “Driver narrowly misses polar bear on commute to St. Anthony”

Footprint photos was all Amy Randell got of the polar bear that ran in front of her car, with 6 year old son Cruz for scale:

Great Brehat footprints_Early March 2017 cruz-randell_Amy Randell submitted to CBC

Twillingate, Newfoundland (9 March 2017) “Polar bear drifts past Twillingate” (last sighting was in March 2000) [no photo]

Black Tickle, Labrador (7 March 2017) “7 polar bears visit stormbound Black Tickle”

Sherman Downey shared this photo he took in Black Tickle:

Black Tickle polar-bear 7 March 2017_Sherman Downey shared photo

Mary’s Harbour, Red Bay and Black Tickle (15 March 2017) “Polar bears spotted near three coastal Labrador communities”

Photo from one of those communities submitted to The Telegraph below (I’ve put it in Red Bay on the map):

Labrador polar-bear-2070615_submitted photo 15 March 2017 Telegraph

Wesleyville, Newfoundland (29 March 2017) “Photographer captures ‘praying’ polar bear in front of cross in Newfoundland” (See more of the copyrighted photos here).

This “praying bear” appears to be the same animal as photographed by Dana Blackmore, below (shared with the CBC):

polar-bear-new-wes-valley_Dana Blackmore shared_CBC 3 April 2017

Bonavista, Newfoundland (2-3 April 2017) “There could be more than one polar bear on Bonavista Peninsula” (older story here).

Photo below by Brandon Collins at Birchy Cove near Bonavista on Sunday 2 April of a female and cub (an older one, not a young of the year), shared with the CBC:

Bonavista nfld Polar Bear 2017 April 2_Brandon Collins shared photo CBC

Photo below by Brandon Collins in Melrose (on the Trinity Bay side of the peninsula) of a large lone male spotted Monday 3 April, shared with The Packet:

Melrose nfld Polar Bear 01_2017 April 3_Brandon Collins shared photo The Packet