Uni­que pho­tos of mating polar mating at the wea­ther sta­ti­on on Hopen

The litt­le island of Hopen seems to be the place curr­ent­ly regar­ding rare wild­life obser­va­tions. Just a few weeks ago a polar fox atta­cked the station’s dogs, later it appeared to have rabies. Only a few days later, the crew of the wea­ther sta­ti­on Hopen Meteo got a wild­life obser­va­ti­on of cen­tu­ry class. Gene­ral­ly, polar bear sightin­gs are not­hing unu­su­al on Hopen. During some win­ters, the­re are seve­ral hundred polar bear obser­va­tions clo­se to the wea­ther sta­ti­on. But the event obser­ved on 04 May was tru­ly uni­que!

Initi­al­ly, the wea­ther sta­ti­on crew thought that the two polar bears that came clo­se to the sta­ti­on might be a mother and her second year cub, having a litt­le fami­ly dis­pu­te as they kept roaring against each other.

Here, the situa­ti­on is not yet clear. Pho­to © Ted Tor­foss.

Rou­ti­ne­ly, the sta­ti­on crew made attempts to sca­re the polar bears away with making noi­se. The bears went away, but only to return later. They had obvious­ly been hun­ting suc­cessful­ly in the mean­ti­me, as evi­den­ced by traces of blood on the face.

Soon it beca­me appearent that it was not an ever­y­day polar bear visit, but that they were a male and a fema­le about to mate. After a while they got down to serious busi­ness.

Here the case is pret­ty clear: mating polar bears. Pho­to © Ted Tor­foss

Being total­ly busy with them­sel­ves, the bears did not pay much atten­ti­on to their sur­roun­dings but kept mating for a good hour, with obvious plea­su­re as the pho­tos sug­gest. The 4 crew mem­bers of Hopen Meteo hence got the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enjoy an obser­va­ti­on which is not just once in a life­time, but much rarer actual­ly. Obvious­ly, they took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take uni­que pho­tos. Here are some ama­zing shots by meteo­ro­lo­gist and pho­to­grapher Ted Tor­foss who made good use of this chan­ce of a life­time and I thank Ted for his kind per­mis­si­on to show some of his pho­tos here! For more pho­tos, visit the web­sei­te of the Hopen wea­ther sta­ti­on. May­be the who­le thing was a bir­th­day pre­sent by natu­re to Ted Tor­foss, who could cele­bra­te his 60th bir­th­day soon after the event? Any­way, hap­py bir­th­day!

Polar bears enjoy­ing some cosy moments. Pho­to © Ted Tor­foss

Of cour­se, polar bears are mating every year and the event as such is com­mon in polar bear are­as in natu­re at this time of year. But as a small num­ber of indi­vi­du­als is spread out over immense­ly lar­ge and very remo­te are­as, obser­va­tions are very few and far bet­ween. The­re are not many pho­tos or foo­ta­ge taken. No ear­lier obser­va­tions are known from Hopen, which would be the hot­spot in Sval­bard for such an occa­si­on given the den­si­ty of polar bears in good ice win­ters and the pre­sence of the wea­ther sta­ti­on.

A few weeks ago, a group of lucky tou­rists also saw polar bears mating in the distance in Tem­pel­fjord not far from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Pho­tos taken by gui­de Yann Ras­hid were seen by many on the web and have wit­hout any doubt scar­ci­ty value, but they do not compa­re to the pho­tos taken from a much smal­ler distance by Ted Tor­foss on Hopen.

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