Polar Expedition Day 8

I woke early this morning, we are on the move and the ship was rocking and rolling.  I have obviously acquired my sea legs because it didn’t bother me and I actually enjoyed it, nodded off back to sleep in fact.  We had a relatively quiet morning, a few snaps from the bow with more great scenery, and it was snowing for a while.

Position as at 7:52am 

  

Then Rinie gave us a talk on polar bears, lots of really interesting stuff that I tried to note down, however it is all in his book, which he has co-written with Louis Beyens, another polar bear expert.  We can get the book autographed, what a cool souvenir, and I was really glad I brought some USD cash with me on a whim.

Here's some of the interesting stuff I noted down (hopefully correctly):

• male bears are sexually mature from about 6 years old but don't mate until they are about 12 years old, they are not fully grown until they are 10 and can't compete with the adult males until fully mature
• female bears leave pheremones from their paws when they are in oestrous
• this coincides with ring seal pupping season
• Ovulation is induced after multiple copulations, so a bear can have cubs from different fathers
• it takes up to two weeks for eggs to be produced, time to make sure they can mate with the strongest bear
• the blastocyst goes dormant and does not implant in the uterus yet.  She fattens first.
• By late August she is pregnant, November she goes into a den in the snow and gives birth around Christmas/New Year.
• the cubs weigh about 500 grams at birth.  
• the small size at birth means it doesn't take as much energy for her to feed them, also the milk is 30-40% fat and 10-15% protein, so it is more efficient to feed them with milk than grow them in utero.  So Polar bears give birth to very underdeveloped cubs and effectively raise them in an incubator with high fat high protein milk.
• Mother bear uses .7g of fat per day to feed her cub/s in the den
• cubs weight 10-12kgs when they leave the den
• Mothers continue to nurse the cubs for more than 2 years
• cubs manage fine in the cold air but being too long in cold water can be fatal, being in cold water requires much more energy than being on land
• 1/3 cubs die in the first year
• mortality of bear cubs on land is 18%, swimming is 45%
• the bear doesn't hibernate, strictly speaking, but sleeps a lot
• the temperature in the den is roughly 20 degrees C warmer than the outside temperature
• the mother will nurse her cubs until March.
• Mother bear cleans the den, and does not urinate or defecate herself, everything is "recycled" into food for the cubs
• the mother has no muscle atrophy while in the den
• Western Hudson Bay bears (Canada) have to fast for 4 months during gestation an they lose 180kg of fat during this time
• they can gain 2kgs a day during a prime hunting season
• 50 kms is considered a "long swimming event".  The longest recorded swim is 427 nautical miles (680 kms)
• longest time recorded is 12.5 days continuous swimming
• How to tell bears sex - female bears often have a urine stain around their bum, male bears you can often see penile hair
• bears less than a year old are called coy - cubs of the year, bears between one and two years old are called yearlings
• bears in the Barents sea have the highest levels of persistent lipiphilic (fat loving) organic pollutants, like PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyls, Chlorinated pesticides like dieldrin and CDDT, and brominated flame retardants PBDE
• one female bear was found with 900 mcgs of PCB in her system, se was 22 years old and had never given birth

We had lunch at 1pm today, also delayed a half hour after the later breakfast, and by now we had arrived at the Magdalenefjord and the ship had dropped anchor.  We headed out on the zodiacs, across the fjord to one of the several glaciers in the fjord, snapping pix.  

The water was quite rough once we got away from the boat, but Natalie managed to fall asleep while we were bouncing along.  She can sleep ANYWHERE.  It’s a gift.

We headed back across the fjord to where the Auks are still nesting, this is the end of the season for them and they will all be gone in a couple of weeks.

Auks are Micks favourite birds, so he was very happy to see them.  They are little black and white birds, with a hilarious cackle, they sound like they are laughing at us as we slog our way up a steep cliff to get closer.  They initially fly away, but once we sit down quietly, they come back.  Laughing at us all the time.  They fly off in large flocks, circling around the fjord in big clusters, before coming back to land.  

Auks

The view of the fjord from our vantage point is stunning, more shutter snaps, the light is beautiful.  

It’s getting late, close to dinner time, so we head back in the zodiacs, glad that I didn’t take my hiking boots, so the bird poop is only on my waterproof boots.

Tonight the captain joins us for dinner, traditionally they join the guests on the last day of the trip, but tomorrow we will be busy packing (booooo !!!)  and some of us are leaving on the midnight flight.

Dinner is rump steak and dessert is Paris Brest – superb and worthy of it’s own photograph.  

Paris Brest

As usual, dinner is an hour and a half affair and we are not done until 9pm.  We head up to the lounge for coffee and drinks, and the scrabble group set up a game.  I head outside briefly, snap a few more pics and then head to the sauna for a 10 minute session.  We are still heading south towards Longyearbyen, so tonight will be rocking.  There are white caps but it doesn’t feel too bad, the waves are behind us.

Meals:

Lunch: roast lamb with thyme juice, cheeses and fruit for dessert

Dinner: entrée is fois gras, brioche toasts, red onion confit, pear and fig chutney, main is beef rumpsteak, anna potatoes and dessert is Paris Brest

Number of photos taken: 800

Bear count: 6