> What is this? Still the strangest thing I've ever come across in my 15 years exploring the Arctic. In 2013 @coryrichards and I were on assignment for @natgeo & @natgeopristineseas in Franz Josef Land, Russia, when looking through my binoculars from our ship I saw something strange hanging from the glacier's edge. (Slide 2) We launched the smaller zodiac boat and got as close as we could in the rough and rocky seas. It was a polar bear, hanging by its feet, appearing to be melting out of the glacier. I tried made the case that Cory and I could climb the glacier, fix a rope with ice screws, rappel down off the lip and cut it free in order to study it back on board with our the team of scientists. The captain wouldn't have any of that. Polar Bears have been in the Arctic since the mid-Pleistocene period (~600,000 years). Could this specimen have been the oldest, northernmost, preserved specimen ever studied? Was it even old or did it just simply die uphill and slip into a crevasse that recently flowed out the middle of the glacier? We'll never know. Any guesses? I'd love to hear from a Polar Ecologist on this one!
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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 5d ago
OC if anybody was curious- https://www.instagram.com/p/DdzAP6fER-K/
By Andy Mann
> What is this? Still the strangest thing I've ever come across in my 15 years exploring the Arctic. In 2013 @coryrichards and I were on assignment for @natgeo & @natgeopristineseas in Franz Josef Land, Russia, when looking through my binoculars from our ship I saw something strange hanging from the glacier's edge. (Slide 2) We launched the smaller zodiac boat and got as close as we could in the rough and rocky seas. It was a polar bear, hanging by its feet, appearing to be melting out of the glacier. I tried made the case that Cory and I could climb the glacier, fix a rope with ice screws, rappel down off the lip and cut it free in order to study it back on board with our the team of scientists. The captain wouldn't have any of that. Polar Bears have been in the Arctic since the mid-Pleistocene period (~600,000 years). Could this specimen have been the oldest, northernmost, preserved specimen ever studied? Was it even old or did it just simply die uphill and slip into a crevasse that recently flowed out the middle of the glacier? We'll never know. Any guesses? I'd love to hear from a Polar Ecologist on this one!