A village "besieged" by aggressive polar bears fleeing climate change

A mbadive invasion of polar bears causes panic in the village of Belushya Guba, part of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, a settlement beyond the Arctic Circle of the Russian region of Arkhangelsk. Local authorities were forced to declare "emergency status" while 52 bears stormed the village in an aggressive manner.

The "the state of continuous alert" since last December, but this is the first time that animals are presented with such a large herd. "I have been here since 1983, but I have never seen anything like it," said Novaya Zemlya's managing director, Zhigansha Musin. "People, he added, are afraid to leave their homes and fear that their children will go to school and kindergarten."

However, the inhabitants, given that the animal protection agency has not given the green light to kill the bearsthey must do a virtue of necessity and try to keep animals away by making noise and using other "non-lethal" strategies.

This strange phenomenon may be related to the effects of climate change in polar areas and forces animals to forage beyond their usual areas. They thus come into contact with the human population, which was not the case before.

The New Zealand Arctic Archipelago, located in northeastern Russia, has about 3,000 inhabitants, all on alert. Bears frequently roam around Beluchia Guba, the largest city in this archipelago where there is a Russian military base. "I have been living in New Zembla since 1983 and have never witnessed such a mbadive invasion of polar bears," said Jigancha Mousin, head of the archipelago administration.

In some cases, animals they have an "aggressive behavior", says Alexander Minaiev, the deputy chief of administration in the statement. "They attack people and enter housing and service buildings (…) Between six and ten bears are permanently on the territory of the population," he says. According to Minaiev, "people are afraid to leave the house (…) parents are afraid to let their children go alone to school".

Polar bears had air seriously affected by global warming and melting of the Arcticwhich forces them to spend more time off the ice looking for food. In Russia, they are clbadified as endangered species and it is forbidden to hunt them. At present, authorities are trying to expel polar bears with patrol vehicles and dogs. "But these measures do not have the desired effect," the authorities lamented. S.D.