Living with Polar Bears
Page 5 of 7
Bruemmer: For writing at night, we’d have the propane stove; for the rest we’d just do without. We’d dress warmly. Those were wonderful years. I really enjoyed it because I loved watching the bears.
PBI: Were you there to photograph, or...
Bruemmer: Yes, and to acquire knowledge, if you like.
PBI: What kind of notes would you pass along to Ian Stirling?
Bruemmer: Ian Stirling mainly wanted to know how many bears, what they did, any familiar bears from previous years, any bears that I could see had been tagged, any information that might be useful to him. For myself, pages and pages and pages of polar bear behavior. That’s what really fascinated me: how animals behave. We lived up in the tower, and after a while the bears became completely used to us. You had 20 to 30 bears, not every day, but they’d come and go and come and go. And after all, we smelled of food. And we were the only sort of food in the neighborhood; there was nothing else to do.
PBI: This is when they were waiting for the ice to freeze, that you were out there?
Bruemmer: Yes.
PBI: Tell me some about the behavior that you saw.
Bruemmer: These are nearly all male bears; the females avoided the Cape until fairly late because of the males. The males will kill cubs, and especially if the female has two cubs or if it’s a young female with cubs who doesn’t know quite what to do, she’s extremely vulnerable. So it was nearly always males. But anything from quite young ones—let’s say two-year-olds who had just been ditched by Mom, and they’re still very, very insecure—and you get these little guys, and at the same time, they’re hungry as can be and their behavior to the older bears who are 8 to 10 years old—bears in their prime, who can weigh 800 to 900 lbs—is partly submissive... I mean, they run faster than the big bears. And back then, we fed the bears. And besides that, we had no toilet and what we excreted, the polar bears ate. They knew all about that. (laughs) We were definitely the local attraction to the bears. I immensely enjoyed it. Anybody who enjoys watching animals, to live in that tower basically isolated... I don’t know for how many years I did that—probably three, four, five years.
PBI: Was that in the '60s?
Bruemmer: Yeah. '60s into the early '70s.
PBI: And you would always be there for three weeks?
Bruemmer: Usually two weeks; once or twice, for three. From late October going into November. It was a good time.
PBI: What was the condition of the bears like back then?
Bruemmer: It changed from year to year. Typically, the fatter they were, the better the condition, the more they would play. At the Cape, they were already paired, so to speak. These were young males who had already met each other, marching down the coast maybe. And they sort of stick together; they haven’t got much to do. And it’s play fighting, like boys who wrestle after class. Later on, of course, it’s dead serious—which I’ve never seen. That’s in March (during breeding season) and I’ve never seen that. It was fun because, really, up 'til then nobody had watched bears for any length of time, without interfering. Being in the tower you don’t really interfere that much. So they would come and lie around and talk to each other, and do this and do that, and a new bear would come and everybody would get up and see, "Who is this?" and then he would make the rounds and introduce himself... this is all very anthropomorphic, but nevertheless, there is something to that. These bears knew each other.
PBI: Were you there when the ice froze and they left? Did you see them checking the ice every day as it got close? What did they do?
Bruemmer: They just sort of walk out, and you know it forms this coastal ice...and it’s quite weak, you don’t step on it. But they have these enormous paws, and they sort of walk out a little bit and then they fall in and they come back again. It’s sort of the idea, "Damn it, not yet."
PBI: How does it happen that they leave? Is it this mass, lemming-like exodus?
PBI: Were you there to photograph, or...
Bruemmer: Yes, and to acquire knowledge, if you like.
PBI: What kind of notes would you pass along to Ian Stirling?
Bruemmer: Ian Stirling mainly wanted to know how many bears, what they did, any familiar bears from previous years, any bears that I could see had been tagged, any information that might be useful to him. For myself, pages and pages and pages of polar bear behavior. That’s what really fascinated me: how animals behave. We lived up in the tower, and after a while the bears became completely used to us. You had 20 to 30 bears, not every day, but they’d come and go and come and go. And after all, we smelled of food. And we were the only sort of food in the neighborhood; there was nothing else to do.
PBI: This is when they were waiting for the ice to freeze, that you were out there?
Bruemmer: Yes.
PBI: Tell me some about the behavior that you saw.
Bruemmer: These are nearly all male bears; the females avoided the Cape until fairly late because of the males. The males will kill cubs, and especially if the female has two cubs or if it’s a young female with cubs who doesn’t know quite what to do, she’s extremely vulnerable. So it was nearly always males. But anything from quite young ones—let’s say two-year-olds who had just been ditched by Mom, and they’re still very, very insecure—and you get these little guys, and at the same time, they’re hungry as can be and their behavior to the older bears who are 8 to 10 years old—bears in their prime, who can weigh 800 to 900 lbs—is partly submissive... I mean, they run faster than the big bears. And back then, we fed the bears. And besides that, we had no toilet and what we excreted, the polar bears ate. They knew all about that. (laughs) We were definitely the local attraction to the bears. I immensely enjoyed it. Anybody who enjoys watching animals, to live in that tower basically isolated... I don’t know for how many years I did that—probably three, four, five years.
PBI: Was that in the '60s?
Bruemmer: Yeah. '60s into the early '70s.
PBI: And you would always be there for three weeks?
Bruemmer: Usually two weeks; once or twice, for three. From late October going into November. It was a good time.
PBI: What was the condition of the bears like back then?
Bruemmer: It changed from year to year. Typically, the fatter they were, the better the condition, the more they would play. At the Cape, they were already paired, so to speak. These were young males who had already met each other, marching down the coast maybe. And they sort of stick together; they haven’t got much to do. And it’s play fighting, like boys who wrestle after class. Later on, of course, it’s dead serious—which I’ve never seen. That’s in March (during breeding season) and I’ve never seen that. It was fun because, really, up 'til then nobody had watched bears for any length of time, without interfering. Being in the tower you don’t really interfere that much. So they would come and lie around and talk to each other, and do this and do that, and a new bear would come and everybody would get up and see, "Who is this?" and then he would make the rounds and introduce himself... this is all very anthropomorphic, but nevertheless, there is something to that. These bears knew each other.
PBI: Were you there when the ice froze and they left? Did you see them checking the ice every day as it got close? What did they do?
Bruemmer: They just sort of walk out, and you know it forms this coastal ice...and it’s quite weak, you don’t step on it. But they have these enormous paws, and they sort of walk out a little bit and then they fall in and they come back again. It’s sort of the idea, "Damn it, not yet."
PBI: How does it happen that they leave? Is it this mass, lemming-like exodus?