“Master of the Arctic” registered habitats of about 40 polar bears

During the expedition “Master of the Arctic” scientists registered about 40 polar bears, 100 wild reindeer, about 250 walruses and 160 beluga whales in the coastal areas of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. The participants of the expedition flew more than 10 thousand kilometers along pre-laid sea and coastal routes. These are the coast of the northern part of Yamal, the eastern coast of the Gydan Peninsula, the Islands of Novaya Zemlya, Beliy, Vaygach, Dolgiy, Matveyev, Shokalsky, Bolshoi Zelenets, Maliy Zelenets, as well as the Pechora Sea, the Gulf of Ob, the Baydaratskaya Bay, the Khaypudyr Bay and others.

“The uniqueness of our expedition is in so that it took place in the summer season, when the ice goes far from the coast and polar bears are forced to either go far from the ice, or stay on land… As practice showed, polar bears were inside the continent. The polar bear adapts and tries to find new resources to support its life activity. The bears we saw were well fed”, said Nikita Platonov, a participant of the expedition. 

Testing aerial survey of polar bears and marine mammals in the coastal areas of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation is the purpose of the environmental project “Master of the Arctic”, as TASS informs. The project was created and implemented jointly by Rosprirodnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage), the center for Arctic initiatives and the International Ecological Foundation “Clean Seas”. According to the head of Rosprirodnadzor Svetlana Radionova, it is important to understand how human activities have affected life of polar bears and other animals, and what should be done to make their life comfortable in the Arctic.