Safety in numbers

Today the rain finally went away. Even though it was only about 2 degrees this morning when we went out to do our sampling routine. Although, we didn't need to tough out the weather for very long.

This morning looked exceptionally promising. Our hopes were high that the ice had gone enough that most of the bears would be on land. Sure enough, we made it through all three checkpoints, bear free. We scanned the remaining ice at our site and proceeded to get out of our vehicle just to hear Ingrid suddenly say "Uhh, there's a bear RIGHT there!" ...and then quickly get back into the truck. Sure enough, from behind the bluff strolled a big ol' white fluffy, only some couple hundred meters away. eeee!

This of course allowed for a nice photo op.



Amanda appeared to be ready to throw in the towel and start waving a white flag.



...another morning, and it was AGAIN not safe to sample!

But, those bears can't outsmart US!

We, The Planktoneers....had a plan.....

We decided to use a tactic that has been evolutionarily successful for thousands of years by species of fish to galloping gazelles. This tactic of course is: Safety In Numbers.

At lunch we explained to a bunch of our friends (new and old) that our site was a wicked, kick-ass spot to see bears, seals and belugas, "you should come" we said enthusiastically to new arrivals, photographers, and people who didn't work in such a polar bear "hot-spot".

Sure enough by 1 o'clock the sun was shining the temperature raised to a whopping 10 degrees and we had our truck filled with 9 of our peers.

We stopped at all of our checkpoints once again...no bears. At our site...still no bears. So we all piled out and marched up onto the bluff. Some people took pictures, another helped to sample, some played on the ice and another collected snails. Either way, we were so-far-so-good.

Conveniently, people scattered themselves on a variety of checkpoints.




Some people thought we may be bologna in saying that we kept seeing bears, I mean where were all these bears? Especially the one from this morning. But just as we were finishing the sampling a big adult bear put on a show. A couple Kilometers away this bear proved them wrong and reinforced the bear abundance of bluff D. All 9 people got to see this bear as is munched down on it's latest feast of seal. some of us were lucky enough to see it drag its catch across the ice. The best part was that it was far enough away that we could finish all of our work for today.

To top off the day we visited the fox pups on the way home. We may have had a tip to where there is an arctic fox den...we will have to see what develops from that lead.