This is a pretty neat idea. BBC sent a film crew with robotic cameras to Svalbard in northern Norway to document the lives of polar bears on the island. The camera angles are pretty crazy and there are a few ‘first-ever’ shots of polar bear behaviour. This is a quick sample of the bears eventually destroying the spycams… you can find the rest on youtube…
Polar Bears Versus SpyCams
Female Polar Bear Plays With Potential Mate
Mother Polar Bear and Cub Emerges From Den
Male Polar Bears Share Seal Kill
Polar Bear Stalks Bearded Seal From Water
So actually, that’s the coolest thing ever – sure looks like the bears are fat in Svalbard too though…
I have posted two youtube videos – Part 1 and Part 2 for Polar Bears: Spy On The Ice… but I think BBC has removed them – copyright something something… oh well, it was a pretty good documentary…
There are two small mistakes though – one declaring that male polar bears will kill cubs so that they can mate and reproduce with the mother (this could be true but has not been studied or proven) and another that states that polar bears are only recently learning to raid goose colonies for eggs. In several of Fred Bruemmer’s arctic books from the early 1970s, it mentions polar bears eating and scavenging in the summer months, including various reports of eating the eggs of nesting birds… it was common knowledge back then that we seem to have misplaced along the way.
I am available as a consultant if anyone at BBC needs assistance.
