After 2.5 weeks of no communication we are now back online as we have headed back South. For the last two weeks the RRS JCR has been sailing up the Barents sea where we reached 81 degrees North! I will upload a full science blog about all that we got up to in the next few days when the internet has fully recovered. For now, here are some epic shots kindly given to me by Johan (as usually I forgot my camera or just wanted to sit and enjoy the presence of such a big apex predator) of some polar bears we saw along our way ice breaking and transiting through the pack and fast ice of the Northern Barents Sea.
Their scientific name is
Ursus maritimus, translating to maritime bear which as we saw is a very fitting name for them as they navigated around broken up pieces of fast ice, rotting pieces and also big areas of open water. They are very powerful swimmers using their front two legs for the power and their back legs as rudders to assist with steering. As you can see here the power in their legs is incredibly strong as they leap between the pack ice.
My favourite fact about polar bears are that they give birth to twins, if they don't then it's generally a rarity. Bears usually live in large territories so it is difficult to breed when males and females are separated by huge polynyas (open areas of water) and brash ice. However; when the females do breed and do raise their young...they try to stay away from the males as they have a terrible habit of eating the younger polar bears...even their own!! Giving birth to twins also increases survival rates of their offspring. The mums seem to have a great time though as before they give birth they eat so much food that they basically pass out into hibernation then sleep off all of the weight they've just put on and wake up to fatten up their twins!
I was very happy to be back in the ice, the colours that is created from the melting and refreezing of ice is incredible...it also happens to be one of my favourite colours. They sit and walk around the ice edge hunting their prey, which is mostly seals. Though I noticed as a comparison to Antarctica there is a lot less wildlife around the ice, seals do not sit on the floes like they do down South and there were less whales apart from in the Southern Barents sea just south of Svalbard!
My next blog will include all of the interesting science that we have been conducting over the past 3 weeks...everything from box coring, to finding cocopops (Copepods) in my nets, to small scale trawling and also glider recoveries)!
