[Animals] ‘No easy fix’: polar bear capital of the world turns to electric buggies to save the bears

[S e u o n g]

 

When tourists reach the north Canadian community of Churchill they have long been greeted by two sounds: the howling of sub-Arctic winds and the rattle of diesel engines.

Over the years, hundreds of thousands of visitors have come to the “polar bear capital of the world”, in the hopes of spotting the predators. They journey on “tundra buggies” - hulking, spacecraft-like vehicles that rumble over the stark landscape.

Now, one of the town’s tour companies has unveiled the region’s first-ever electric buggy - a vehicle that can move almost silently into areas where the polar bears congregate. The buggy has an estimated range of three days worth of tours and can operate in frigid temperatures.

 

Frontiers North Adventures, which provided transport to the Guardian and other media outlets to view the vehicle in Churchill, plans to convert the remainder of its fleet over to electric motors, reducing more than 3,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 25 years - the equivalent of 353,635 liters of diesel fuel.

The company pitched it as part of a move to address the climate crisis, which experts have long said will have an outsized impact on polar bears.

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The company’s maiden voyage for its electric vehicle came as the area remained ice free for the first time in years - a scenario that may prove deadly for the bears.

A handful of kilometers from where the vehicles parked, the dark waters of Hudson Bay lashed at the shore - a rarity for late November and a warning sign for 800 or so polar bears in the region waiting to begin their hunt on sea ice for ringed seals .

In recent years, that wait has grown longer and longer.

While the timing of the ice formation varies from year to year, experts say the trend over recent decades is cause for concern.

 

 

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/03/no-easy-fix-polar-bear-capital-of-the-world-turns-to-electric-buggies-to-save-the-bears