Since December 2018, residents of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago have spotted more than 50 bears, who are “chasing people and entering residential buildings”.
As human activity keeps on driving the climate crisis which is causing rapid ice loss at both poles and in other cold regions, destroying the habitats of animals who live there, Russian islands in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago have declared a state of emergency in response to a “mass invasion” of dozens of starving polar bears who have been “chasing people and entering residential buildings.”
With rising temperatures increasingly destroying the bears’ Arctic habitats, interactions with humans are becoming more common. As Liz Greengrass, a director at the United Kingdom-based Born Free Foundation, told CNN last year: “Polar bears are reliant on seals for food and seals rely on sea ice. Global warming is melting the ice so it has a chain reaction on how polar bears can survive.”
Polar bear invasion on Novaya Zemlya as 50 wild animals besiege remote town, and chase people. State of emergency called, locals are told they cannot shoot endangered species scavenging for food at local dump https://t.co/j7nI40QZOK pic.twitter.com/yv3FYu8Nof
— The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) February 10, 2019
Because residents of the Russian region are banned from shooting the bears, which are classified by the country’s environmental watchdog as an endangered species, a team of experts is being dispatched to the archipelago—home to about 3,000 people—in hopes of preventing animal attacks, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
The specialists hope to prevent attacks without having to shoot any bears, though reportedly acknowledge that a cull may be necessary. It's not yet clear how long the state of emergency will last in the region, which was once used for Soviet nuclear tests and is now a Russian military garrison.
🌷Irina Elis🌷MURMANSK, RUSSIA (@muah_irinaelis) on
As human activity keeps on driving the climate crisis which is causing rapid ice loss at both poles and in other cold regions, destroying the habitats of animals who live there, Russian islands in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago have declared a state of emergency in response to a “mass invasion” of dozens of starving polar bears who have been “chasing people and entering residential buildings.”
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