By David Fleet
dfleet@mihomepaper.com
Churchill, Manitoba — They are the largest bear species in the world up to 12 feet tall and weighing in at 1,700 pounds the largest land carnivores. Yet despite their immense size and location near the peak of the food chain, polar bears are in trouble. Real trouble.
An area family recently completed a journey to Churchill Manitoba to see polar bears in an effort to get up close and personal with the massive creature of the north.
“My family and I had been planning this trip for a few years now, I wanted my kids to actually see a polar bear in the wild,” said Heath Zietz, who along with two sons Isaac and Horaito made the 1,200 mile trek via plane, train and tundra buggy.
“Knowing the impacts of climate change, I was afraid that they might not have that opportunity when they got older. What I did not realize though was how bad the situation was,” he said
According to the Polar Bear International group they estimate that the polar bears around Churchill could go extinct as soon as the 2030s.  Based on studies of energy usage and metabolism rates of polar bears, if the Hudson bay has more than 170 days without ice coverage then the local polar bear population would starve.
The family flew out to Winnipeg, Manitoba and took a train for two days to the town of Churchill which has a population of about 900 people.
“Churchill is considered the polar bear capital of the world, because they have three freshwater rivers that flow into the Hudson Bay around the town,” he said.  “The reduced concentration of salinity causes the ice to freeze faster than at other areas of the Hudson Bay,  thus the local polar bear population congregates there in the fall waiting for the bay to freeze to start their winter hunting of seals.”
The family scheduled various tours while there, seeing the town, some wildlife tours, and even visiting the northern studies research center where they study polar bears, vegetation, birds and other Arctic wildlife.
“We also visited an old rocket range run by NASA in the 1950’s – 60s where they used to launch rockets to study the aurora borealis, ” he said.  “Every tour we took we needed to be escorted with an armed guard to protect us from any possible polar bears, we ended up seeing nine polar bears in the various tours.  The closest we ever got to one was 100 yards away.”
While in town, the family visited the Polar bear international interpretive center and learned that there are 20 groups of polar bears in the world, Churchill is the Western Hudson Bay group.  This group has 816 known polar bears, which is a 50% reduction from the 1980s population.  The reduction is believed to be due to the shortened period of days in which the Hudson Bay is frozen over.
In the 80s the Hudson day only had 107 days in which there was no ice coverage,  today the number is 130 days due to the increased temperatures of climate change.
“This lack of ice coverage means the bears have to go longer without being able to eat during the summer months,” he said.  “Some of the polar bears have started to adapt to the shortened winter by hunting Beluga whales in the summer months, when they normally would have been resting.”