Male polar bear inju­red by sci­en­ti­fic col­lar: con­tin­ued

This is the update on yesterday’s artic­le (Male polar bear inju­red by sci­en­ti­fic col­lar). A mixed US-Ame­ri­can/­Ca­na­di­an team is out try­ing to find the bear, which is known as “Andy”. The fol­lo­wing update from ear­lier today (Oct. 28) is from Polar Bears Inter­na­tio­nal, with addi­tio­nal comm­ents from Mor­ten Jør­gen­sen:

“… basi­cal­ly … there’s no news: The bear hasn’t been re-sigh­ted sin­ce Oct. 13th and a com­bi­ned US/Canadian team is asses­sing how to pro­ceed. To fur­ther com­pli­ca­te mat­ters, the sea ice has begun to free­ze, the bears are disper­sing from Kak­to­vik, and the col­lar is no lon­ger broad­cas­ting (if it were on the air, it would have been remo­ved ear­lier). This is a logi­sti­cal­ly com­plex pro­blem that they’re doing their best to resol­ve…”

Comm­ents from Mor­ten:

“This is sad. And it rai­ses more ques­ti­ons than it ans­wers.

The com­ment that if it had been working, the col­lar “would have been remo­ved ear­lier” is a stran­ge one. Does that imply that the fate of “Andy” was known long befo­re the expe­di­ti­on was moun­ted? Does that mean that the expe­di­ti­on could have been sent out ear­lier? Does that sug­gest that the expe­di­ti­on was sent out not so much to save “Andy” as to appease the gro­wing amount of con­cer­ned peo­p­le?

Apart from that, now we know a litt­le (very litt­le) more.

1. We know that the col­lar is not sen­ding a signal and has not done so for a while – mea­ning that the bear is wea­ring it for abso­lut­e­ly not­hing.

2. And we know that unless the situa­ti­on chan­ges, “Andy” is off some­whe­re in the begin­ning of the polar night on his own, pos­si­bly to slow­ly die from wounds and infec­tions inflic­ted by his “instru­ment”.

This case lea­ves many, many ques­ti­ons still. Once tho­se respon­si­ble are back from their excur­si­on, we expect ans­wers.”

So far Morten’s comm­ents. The­re will be updates on this pages as soon as the­re are any news.

Source: Infor­ma­ti­on from Mor­ten Jør­gen­sen / Face­book-page Pro­tect the Polar Bear

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