“The accumulated industrial chemicals cause diseases in the polar bears which do not lead to their immediate deaths,” said Christian Sonne, Senior Scientist at Aarhus University. “On the other hand, the toxins damage the bones and organs of the polar bears, their immune systems and not least their reproductive systems. However, the harm suffered by the population of polar bears in eastern Greenland is not yet fully understood.”

The researchers also fed the same environmental toxins to Greenlandic sled-dogs and Arctic foxes, two species which are genetically similar to polar bears and are also at the top of the food chain. Those which were exposed to the chemicals were found to have suffered psychical damage, while those in the control group had not.

The five men, who were planning to conquer the Stauning Alps in the northeast of the country, spent two days and nights next to a flooded river they had crossed on foot shortly before.

Known to be in an area populated with polar bears, with little food left and a broken satellite phone, they were finally rescued when they managed to attract the attention of a helicopter pilot who happened to be taking geologists to a remote location. The team were found shortly after a 17 year-old British boy died and four other people were injured in a polar bear attack on an Arctic expedition in Norway.

While stranded, one member of the team attempted the crossing and was briskly swept away before managing to clamber back onto the bank. The leader of the Scottish Mountaineering Club team, Colwyn Jones, said afterwards that he believes any further attempts to cross the river would have been fatal.

The group used a reflective blanket, a small mirror and a rifle they had with them to protect against polar bears and to attract the pilot’s attention. When they made their journey away from their ill-fated mission, they saw a group of bears just six miles from where they were camped.

“There wasn’t any food left and we didn’t know how long we were going to be stuck there for.
The only things left were caramel wafers and logs and we were extremely grateful to have them,” Jones told The Scotsman. “It was purely by chance that the pilot happened to fly over the valley we were stuck in that day. It is fair to say we were all extremely pleased to see him,” he added.

The grizzly group of around 60 Greenpeace volunteers invaded the Scottish headquarters at around 08.15 on Monday morning, demanding that the firm publish its oil spill-response plan, and handing out leaflets to employees encouraging them to become whistleblowers.

The Greenpeace group has previously scaled Cairn’s Greenland rigs on various occasions in an attempt to force the company to reveal what measures they have in place in the event of a spill like that seen at the BP Deep Water Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico last year. Cairn announced on 6th June that such plans are not available to the public, and activists have since been banned from the area by Danish authorities.

Speaking to Bloomberg at the time of the occupation, Greenpeace campaigner Vicky Wyatt said, “About 30 of them have locked themselves to various bits of furniture and they will stay there until Cairn publish their oil spill plan.” Several activists had to be forcefully removed by police and will appear in court this week.

Cairn confirmed that the demonstrators had gained access to their offices. “Wherever it is active, Cairn operates in a safe and prudent manner,” the company said in a statement. “Cairn takes its responsibilities such as oil spill contingency and response plans very seriously,” it added.

The US Geological Survey estimates that the waters around Greenland contain as much as 50 billion barrels of oil and gas, enough to meet the energy demands of Europe for around two years.

(Photos: Anders Peter Amsnæs)

DNA samples taken from polar bears from Greenland, Norway, Alaska and Russia proved that each individual’s lineage traced back to an Irish mama bear that lived 20,000 to 50,000 years ago.

The two different species also periodically mated during the last 100,000 years, according to the analysis of genetic indicators which are passed down through females. The revelation could help to quell the fears of scientists that cross-species mingling is a further threat to the Arctic bears than are struggling to cope with the effects of climate change.

In recent years, since the Arctic species have been pushed beyond their usual environment due to melting ice, several ‘pizzlies’ (a cross between polar and grizzly bears) have been spotted by researchers. Although it was known that polars evolved from a large family of brown bears 150,000 years ago, it was not known whether further inter-species mating had dramatically shaped the current gene pool.

“Hybridisation could certainly result in the loss of unique genetic sequences, which could push them toward extinction,” Beth Shapiro, lead researcher and a Pennsylvania State University professor, told AFP. “But scientists should reconsider conservation efforts focused not just on polar bears but also on hybrids, since hybrids may play an underappreciated role in the survival of certain species,” she added.

A team of scientists analysed DNA passed from females to their offspring in 242 living and ancient bears. “We found that the matrilines of the polar bears coalesce to a relatively recent common ancestor” – one which lived along Ireland’s Atlantic shore – said the study’s co-author Daniel Bradley.

The children of Kulusuk have quite a relationship with the royal family, having received Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik when they visited the school — an event which left an indelible mark, Sermitsiaq reports.

On a separate occasion at the opening of the Greenland exhibition at North Atlantic House in December 2009, it was the six children from the then-Year Six class in Kulusuk who had made and presented two toy sleds which the Crown Prince accepted on behalf of Prince Christian and Princess Isabella.

Last Friday, Year Seven students Kevin and Augo (pictured), were allowed to skip their English and maths classes to finish making toys to send to the royal twins with the Greenlandic names Minik and Ivalo.

In the picture they proudly present their work and there are now two East Greenland polar bears winging their way to Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen.

(Photo: Lars-Peter Sterling / Sermitsiaq.ag)

The arrangement involves both the Greenland and Canadian governments along with the territorial government of Nunavut in Canada.

Jim Prentice, Canada’s Federal Environment Minister travelled to Kangerlussuaq in Western Greenland on the 29th of October to meet with his counterparts as they reached a common agreement on polar bear management, according to Siku News.

The tripartite accord has been in the planning for several months and will encompass the Canadian Arctic along with hunting regions shared by Greenland and the Nunavut federal territory, notably Baffin Bay and the Kane basin.

The practice of hunting polar bears has been the cause of considerable international controversy for many years, with environmental experts claiming that the population is not sustainable under current levels. In recent years activists in the USA have been at the forefront of moves to classify the polar bear as an endangered species at risk due to climate change. It is currently classified as vulnerable.

Sixty eight bears are hunted under quota by Greenland in Baffin Bay each year and there is substantial pressure on Nunavut authorities to adopt similar limits. Presently the quota for Nunavut hunters in Baffin Bay is 108 polar bears although the territory has proposed reducing the number to 64 or the possible introduction of a complete moratorium in the area.

However, Inuit hunters have claimed the Baffin Bay polar bear population is in fact not going down but increasing. The Inuit say their information is more reliable than scientific studies given their close contact with the animals.

The total population is around 25,000 in global Polar Regions. Of the 13 polar bear subpopulations in Canada, those in the Kane Basin and Baffin Bay are shared between Nunavut and Greenland.

“The polar bear … has become politically dangerous,” WWF’s Norway chief Rasmus Hansson told the AP, adding, “Polar bears have become the very symbol of climate change.” Norway is not happy with the closed-door aspect of the political talks being held in Tromso because it goes against their tenets of transparent politics.

The issue of climate change is so touchy these days that every country but Norway balked at the idea of holding public forums on the polar bear dilemma ahead of Copenhagen’s international climate treaty conference in December. The five nations involved in the Tromso talks are reviewing their policies concerning polar bears for the first time in 28 years.

There are only around 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears left in the wild. The 3-day meeting will try to identify and preserve essential polar bear habitats, manage hunting, and seek ways to curb the damage caused by greenhouse gasses and other toxins.

After the bear that visited Iceland at the beginning of June was destroyed, Sveinbjarnardottir organized the working group to go over what happened to the bear and to set a plan for what to do if more bears come to Iceland. “It is my opinion that if the place and conditions are suitable, we should try and capture the bears alive. But we should consider each case separately,” she said.

However, the group’s conclusions put a question mark on whether polar bears should be saved in the future.

The group concluded: “Polar bears are on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for animals that are vulnerable to extinction, and have recently been recorded as threatened in North America. Despite this ranking, the IUCN supports the sustainable hunting of all 19 populations of polar bears, including those in Greenland.”

The specialists that the working group consulted were united in their response. As the IUCN’s Polar Bear Specialist Group supports sustainable utilization of all polar bear populations, they make no comment on the fact that the bears that have come to Iceland have been shot.

Because of the number of tourist traveling around the area the local police in cooperation with the coast guard and the local district commissioner have been on the look out and securing the area, after searching from air to 02:30 the search was called of and authorities believe that this was not an actual sighting.

MBL.is reports