Reporting, Don Shelby (WCCO)

Sep 30, 2010 11:10 pm US/Central

In late fall, the polar bears migrate north through town to the forming ice where they can feed on seals. And after months of fasting, they can be hungry and dangerous. But their world is changing.

Along the western coast of Hudson Bay, there is a town surrounded by subarctic wilderness. A place polar bears call home. Churchill, Manitoba is about 1,000 miles north of the Twin Cities.

In late fall, the bears migrate north through town to the forming ice where they can feed on seals. And after months of fasting, they can be hungry and dangerous. But their world is changing.

WCCO-TV anchor Don Shelby visited Churchill in 1992 and had no idea he would bring back a story that has a whole new impact 18 years later.

To see the bears in the wild you must travel away from the urban tundra into the Churchill wilderness area where there are no roads.

Nancy Gibson, a Minnesota naturalist who studied the bears in Churchill in the 1980s, took Shelby out into the tundra.

"Now this is a weapon," Gibson said while holding a bear paw. "This is the polar bear's main device for swiping and killing its prey. It is massive."

"It was the trip of a lifetime," said Gibson, "It was amazing."

"It really was," said Shelby. "I never expected my life to be that close to polar bears."

"We were close. And these magnificent creatures that we got to experience for those few days," said Gibson. "And the one thing I truly remember is we were sort of waiting for the bears to come."

While Shelby was setting up an interview with the owner of a sled dog that had been killed by a polar bear earlier, a bear attacked another dog.

Shots were fired, but they were only warning shells called cracker shells. Only if a human life is at stake would residents shoot to kill.

"That was most amazing thing I've ever seen," Shelby said to the dog owner. "This huge animal had your dog down, had its head in his mouth but it didn't kill the dog."

The dog was shaken and hurt but survived with a puncture wound on its back.

But since Gibson and Shelby were there, the waters of Hudson Bay have warmed significantly.

"Have things changed up there?" asked Shelby.

"They've changed a lot," said Gibson. "Right now polar bears are truly struggling just to survive."

"I've traveled way over a thousand days of my life on the moving ice. I've lived on the ice, on the bear country," said Arctic explorer, Will Steger.

He has witnessed the changes firsthand.

"And we're seeing an incredible change in the sea ice, especially in the summertime," said Steger. "This summer alone we lost about 50 percent of the sea ice on the Arctic Ocean."

"The ice is a casualty of global warming and the other name for the polar bear is the ice bear," said Steger. "And if we lose the ice, we lose the bear along with many other species."

Those other species include caribou, wolves, owls on down through the food chain. Steger believes that, right now, 20 percent of the polar bear population is in danger.

"Is there a possibility that polar bears could face extinction somewhere in the next hundred years?" asked Shelby.

"I think certainly," said Steger.

For the people of Churchill, the bears are both a blessing and a curse.

Children can't play outside while they're in town. They have to lock stray bears in a jail to keep residents safe. And you can hear them banging against the walls.

But there's tourist money to be made off the visiting bears.

Now the polar bears migrate much later, and there are now fewer bears for the people to contend with.

"What strikes me is that we didn't know we were looking at an apex predator that we would find out 10 years after going on the trip, was in danger of going extinct," said Shelby. "We didn't even think about that."

"We didn't know a lot maybe then," said Gibson. "We know a lot more now. And because we know a lot more now, we need to do more now. Whether it be the polar bear, the caribou, the wolf. All of those species need some help from us cause we're causing the problem."

To bring what's happening home, University of Minnesota researchers say that within the next 50 to 100 years the Boundary Waters will stop being a pine-studded forest.

As the climate changes, maple trees will replace them. And the North Woods will eventually become grassland, looking more like our prairies.

See the online article from the WCCO website - Sept. 30, 2010