The second stage of the filming of a polar bear documentary, Medvezhy Ugol (The Polar Bear’s Corner), has been completed in the northern part of Russian Arctic National Park. The crew spent two weeks on Alexandra Land of the Franz Josef Land archipelago filming scientists study four male polar bears, the national park press service reported.

A group of scientists from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences continued efforts to monitor the Arctic’s main predator, with support from the Arctic Research Centre at the request of Rosneft.

“Polar bear research at Russian Arctic National Park is underway in both clusters: the southern one (the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya) and the northern one (the Franz Josef Land archipelago). In cooperation with the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences and its permanent expedition that studies animals listed in the Russian Red Data Book and other important wildlife in Russia, this work has been conducted occasionally starting in 2009 and on a permanent basis since 2017,” said Alexander Kirillov, director of Russian Arctic National Park.

Experts from the Severtsov Institute, led by senior research fellow Ilya Mordvintsev, are studying polar bears in the Russian Arctic. The programme is designed to study, preserve and restore the polar bear population. Researching the current habitat of polar bears, collecting data on their migrations, and analysing the changes in the habitat amid global climate change in Russian Arctic National Park is a long-term project. Zoologists can only draw conclusions by collecting annual data over time.

Franz Josef Land, like Wrangel Island, is considered to be a “maternity home” for the polar bear. The numerous islands of the archipelago, surrounded by ice even in the summer months and abundant in bird, seal and walrus rookeries, is an ideal place for the polar predator.

The film crew managed to capture the Arctic in spring, when it is sunny, cold and magnificent. The director, Maxim Pervakov, worked in 2020 in the southern cluster, where the first stage of the filming took place.

“During the expedition, we filmed other necessary material such as three males studied by the experts, as well as the rest of the Arctic fauna: Arctic foxes, walruses and earless seals,” Pervakov said.

According to the director, the work with wildlife photographer Nikolai Gernet helped them to divide up the tasks and make the process more comprehensive.

It was important for the crew to film female bears with cubs that leave their dens and begin to learn to survive in the harsh Arctic world. However, they did not manage to see them due to the spring snowstorms, when the expedition was not able to leave the base for almost a week.

At the moment, work is underway at the Russian Arctic National Park office to transcribe the interviews and select the best shots, after which the post-production stage begins. The presentation of The Polar Bear’s Corner will take place in Moscow, at the headquarters of the Russian Geographical Society, in 2021.