Photographer Captures Pictures of Polar Bears on Snowless Alaskan Island

Alaska is typically associated with snow landscapes, so when photographer Patty Waymire made her way to Barter Island she planned on snapping pictures of polar bears in their wintry habitat. However, she ran into one problem. There was no snow. 

 

“Alaska has been dealing with record warmth for much of 2016, including a recent warm up just last week,” said weather.com meteorologist Brian Donegan. “In fact, last Thursday, temperatures just south of the North Pole reached 31 degrees Fahrenheit, which was about 50 degrees above average for this time of year.”

 

The snowless island caught Waymire off guard. 

 

“I was surprised when I arrived, to find there was no snow nor was the sea ice forming yet,” Waymire told The Huffington Post. “The locals told me that it was an unusually warm winter and that the snow would be late in arriving. It is one of the warmest winters on record.”

 

 

These warming temperatures have made it difficult for Arctic sea ice to form. 

 

Typically fall brings in the season of sea ice growth, however, November saw a brief retreat of the ice that was virtually unprecedented in almost 40 years of satellite records, according to a previous report. 

 

This is bad news for the bears. In the area where Waymire captured her photos, the loss of sea ice has been correlated with lower survival rates for polar bears, Huffington Post also reports. 

 

“For polar bears, ice is basically their platform of life,” University of Washington Polar Science Center researcher Kristin Laidre told the Huffington Post in a separate article. “They use ice to find prey, they use ice to find their mates, to breed, to travel.” 

 

Check out the slideshow above to see photos from Waymire’s shoot.