A visibly exhausted and starving polar bear wandered into a
major Russian industrial city on Tuesday, hundreds of kilometres away from its
natural habitat, as widespread wildfires rage across the Arctic Circle.
Footage released on Tuesday by Oleg Krashevsky, a local
wildlife expert, showed an emaciated polar bear in Norilsk, an industrial city
in Siberia, located above the Arctic Circle.
It is the first polar bear seen in the city in more than 40
years, according to local environmentalists.
Polar bears have increasingly been spotted far away from
their natural sea-ice habitats as climate change pushes them further afield for
food.
A polar bear was flown back to the northern arctic region of
Chukotka in April by Russian authorities after it was found in a village around
700km away. Two months earlier, a Russian archipelago asked for help to tackle
"a mass invasion of polar bears into inhabited areas."
Using satellite imagery we can easily observe how the polar
bears' natural habitat -the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean- is dispersed into
small ice floes. "Of course when the sea ice breaks up, the polar bears
will seek stable ice on which they can hunt. However, if there are no seals or
other food sources, then forced to keep searching" ESA Earth programme's
head Mark Drinkwater told euronews.
EU, contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2019
processed with EO Browser
The Kara sea, north of Norilsk, on June 17EU, contains
modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2019 processed with EO Browser
Climate science expert Zackary Labe helped us understand the
picture "The blue areas on the Sentinel-2 satellite images are showing
areas of melt ponds on-top of the sea ice. Melt ponds form during the summer
months as snow/ice begins to melt on the top layer of the sea ice. In the case
of this satellite image, it looks likely that the sea ice is beginning to
substantially melt.
Temperatures have been well above average in parts of
northern Siberia this month, which has contributed to a rapid melt of snow
cover and sea ice along the Siberian side of the Arctic Ocean. This is
especially noticeable in the Laptev Sea" he tells euronews.
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