The employees of the Nizhnekolymsky Regional Nature Protection Inspection in Yakutia have opened the autumn season of monitoring polar bears in the Kolyma Gulf of the East Siberian Sea. They set out by boat from the village of Pokhodsk and covered 200 kilometres by the Kolyma River and the Kolyma Gulf towards the Krestovaya Base.

While travelling by boat, they saw two polar bears on the shore. Later they saw 10 bears in the area of Krestovaya, including two female bears, each with two cubs born last year. The bears looked well fed.

“The bears come from the west. Some of them then move east along the coastline,” said Viktor Nikiforov, head of the WWF Polar Bear Patrol programme. “The watchers will continue their work until the freezing period begins in early November, when they will be able to return home on snowmobiles.”

(Photo © Fyodor Yakovlev)