Jon Aars is a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway’s main institution for research, environmental monitoring and mapping of the polar regions. With the support of WWF, Aars studies polar bear populations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Read all of  his field notes from a Spring 2013 research expedition, and follow the bears on our Polar Bear Tracker.

29 April – We left KV Svalbard a week ago, and have not been out flying for eight days because of bad weather. That is how it works in the Arctic, low pressure systems can bring bad weather for periods of days, and helicopter flying is risky if conditions are not good. With white snow, and moderate sun light, it is hard to see the contrasts on the snow and easy to crash a helicopter flying close to the ground. Darting bears, we fly on only a few meters altitude.
But today, when the weather suddenly improved, we flew to Storfjorden, between the largest islands in Svalbard. This is core polar bear habitat, and we were efficient working from early morning to late night. All together we handled 11 bears, a number we rarely reach in one day of work. It feels good to get that much done after a long period without being able to work, particularly as tomorrow will be our last field day this spring.
Among the bears we captured were two old females on 21 and 24 years of age, the former with a cub of the year and the latter with a yearling. Females this old more often have one cub than two, age having taken its toll. We also captured two different two-year-old bears. They will just have departed from their mothers and will have a challenging time ahead, when they have to learn to hunt on their own. One of them had managed to kill a ringed seal pup, that is at least a good breakfast.

Jon Aars is a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway’s main institution for research, environmental monitoring and mapping of the polar regions. With the support of WWF, Aars studies polar bear populations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Read all of  his field notes from a Spring 2013 research expedition, and follow the bears on our Polar Bear Tracker.

14 April – After some days in southern Svalbard, the weather improved in more northern areas, and we sailed up north of Spitsbergen, at a latitude of about 80°. After lunch the weather was fine for flying, and we found an adult female in Woodfjorden, north-west Spitsbergen. Few polar bears survive long after they pass their early twenties, but this lady was marked in Woodfjorden already in 1994, as an adult with two small cubs, then estimated to be 7 years old. So at a likely age of 26 years, she will be one of the oldest bears around in Svalbard. She got a collar on, and hopefully she will still be able to hunt seals for a while, at least her condition seemed good.
We handled another two adult females, one together with a yearling and another with two small cubs. This is an area where a few females come out from maternity dens every spring, and most bears we encounter here are very local. Genetics have shown that daughters comes back to the fjords in this area and goes into den in the same area where they were born. Some may walk far into the pack ice north and northeast from there in summer, but will return before autumn. Other bears use the local area year around.

Jon Aars is a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway’s main institution for research, environmental monitoring and mapping of the polar regions. With the support of WWF, Aars studies polar bear populations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Read all of  his field notes from a Spring 2013 research expedition, and follow the bears on our Polar Bear Tracker.

10th April – Today we had a good day in field, with six bears handled. We flew quite far, to Edgeøya at the south-eastern part of Svalbard. Hunters who shot bears for hides many decades ago frequently stayed here over the winter, as many bears pass through the area.
In the morning we found fresh tracks from a female with two cubs, but lost them when the snow got so hard the prints were not longer visible. We started to get a bit low on fuel, but fortunately had a depot on the island where we could refuel and thus continue the search on the east side of the island.
In front of one of the big glaciers we again encountered tracks, this time from a pair of mating bears. April is mating season. Tracks from bears mating are quite distinctive, frequently with parallel tracks with a lot of sharp turns and no particular direction. We found the bears after some effort, and darted them. She was a recapture, marked last year, about six years old.
Later we found a polar bear maternity den, occupied by a visiting adult male, and likely already departed by the family. He also turned out to be a known bear, marked in 2008, now close to 15 years old. We then searched for a female with two small cubs out in some very structured sea ice, making it quite challenging to follow the tracks. But finally we found them, a young female with her first litter, two small cubs about weighing about 8 kilos. Back on the boat we finally got a deserved meal after a long day. When it’s below -20°C and windy all day, then a warm meal is always good to warm up.

Jon Aars is a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway’s main institution for research, environmental monitoring and mapping of the polar regions. With the support of WWF, Aars studies polar bear populations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Read all of  his field notes from a Spring 2013 research expedition, and follow the bears on our Polar Bear Tracker.

Yesterday we entered the Norwegian coast guard ship KV Svalbard, our home for the next couple of weeks. It is a great ship, and with a highly service-minded crew. Besides patrolling the areas around Svalbard to check that fishing boats follow the rules, they frequently help teams doing research in the area.
We planned to sail north, until we checked the weather forecast – snow and wind in that part of the archipelago. So we sailed south during the night, and surveyed Hornsund, the most southern fjord on the Spitsbergen west coast, today.
In the inner part, in front of the glaciers, we encountered tracks from two different adult females, with one and two small cubs respectively. However, we did not find the bears. But after some more searching, we found a single adult female, a twelve year old that was marked in Hornsund as a cub in 2001. We captured her in 2007 with two sons, her first litter. One of them was killed in self defense in a cabin a bit further west some days ago, when he tried to get into a cabin with two people. The female got a collar, and we located an adult male in the same area after a few minutes of flying. He was a large animal in his prime age, about 10 years old.

Jon Aars is a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway’s main institution for research, environmental monitoring and mapping of the polar regions. With the support of WWF, Aars studies polar bear populations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Read all of  his field notes from a Spring 2013 research expedition, and follow the bears on our Polar Bear Tracker.
6th April – We were out for a short trip yesterday in Isfjorden, the fjord where Longyearbyen, the main settlement in Svalbard, is located. We did not encounter any bears, but it is always good to get started, to see that the helicopter is working and get all necessary gear on board. So today, we went out on a longer trip, and we flew south, to Van Mijenfjorden and Van Keulenfjorden. These two fjords on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island of Svalbard, end in glaciers that stretch over to the east coast. Bears may cross over to the east frequently, where the water is colder and more bears are found. However, there are usually some bears also on the western side of the island, and particularly in spring.
The first part of the day, we did not encounter any bears, although we found some tracks. We spotted a ringed seal pup on the ice, far from the lair or from the closest breathing hole. It does happen they get too far away from the closest safe exit into the water, and the odds are then high they will be found by foxes, gulls or polar bears before they can escape.
After a couple of hours flying without encountering any bears, we finally found some fresh tracks in the outer part of Van Keulenfjorden. Here we found two adult females, only a few hundred meters apart, both on the sea ice on search for seals.
One was a seven year old female that had been earlier marked in the same area, originally in April 2008 as a two year old when still together with her mother. The other female was old, likely between 15 and 20 years of age, and not marked before. Accordingly, she got lip tattoos and ear marks so we will be able to recognize her if we capture her again another year. Finally, on a glacier, we found another old female, together with a one year old daughter. All the three adults were equipped with iridium telephone collars so we can follow their movements.