Polar Bear Watch: Making Plans For Nigel
“’POLAR bears on the brink? Don’t you believe it’.”
So says the Daily Mail, which journeys to the Arctic to find out that polar bears have never had it so good.
“Doomed?” asks the paper. Well, yes. Surely. Anorak’s Polar Bear Watch notes that every time the engine on a 4×4 is started a polar bear dies. The Mail says the polar bear population today is around 25,000. There are now more polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, than there are packets of Birds Instant Custard in all of Manitoba (all newspapers).
And these bears are looking at humans, of which there are far greater numbers. Says the paper: “Unseasonably warm weather has left the huge male bear stranded for almost four months, far from his winter hunting ground on the edge of the sheet-ice – so a meaty, 6ft human looks too appetising to resist.”
The meaty human is called “Nigel”. And “Nigel is just emerging from behind a snow-dusted willow bush when the great white bear comes loping towards him. His instinct is to turn and run for it back to the Jeep.”
Or to save the planet and climb on a pushbike and peddle to his car, whirling his hands about for added warmth. The irony that a 4×4 is saving humanity cannot be overlooked.
“Nigel stands stock still. Then, showing the bear that he isn’t afraid, Nigel raises himself to his full height.” And: “Alarmingly, however, the bear just keeps on coming. He is within eight or nine yards of Nigel – close enough for even a man who has swum with Great White sharks to feel concerned – when he is stopped in his tracks by two loud cracks from a pump-action rifle.”
Fur-lined gloves. His ‘n’ hers jackets. And the mounted head of a Nigel on the wall of a log cabin.
But no: “The warning shots have been fired by Dennis Compayre, a grizzled old polar bear hand hired to act as Nigel’s ‘eyes and ears’ as he films Polar Bear Week, a captivating five-part series which begins on Channel 5 next week.”
Nigel is both blind and deaf. Polar bears are equal opportunity eaters.
Says Dennis: “People are deliberately seeking out skinny bears and filming them to show they are dying out. That’s not right.”
What is right is to stand stock still when you encounter a polar bear, so best to take a picture. And try to ensure that the polar bear is sat on a runny lump of ice, creating the impression that is the bear’s body heat that is melting the Arctic…
Posted: 8th, December 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
