The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-02-02
POLAR BEARS ON ICEBERG.
Six of the Monsters Were Afloat On
the Banks of Newfoundland.

The polar bear story told by the Off
GERS of the steamship Hanover on her
last trip to Baltimore is quite unusual,
but not improbable They say that
when entering the eastern edge of the
Grand banks of Newfoundland they
sighted a large iceberg and through a
glass discovered that it was tananted
by two or three polar bears. Drawing
nearer. they could see with the naked
eye six bears clambering around on the
ice mass.
Unless appearances were deceptive it
is evident that these involuntary wan
derers were making an unusually long
Journey to the south and We're bound
for swift destruction by drowning.
They had probably not suffered for
food, as the Greenland and Labrador
waters through which they had passed
abound with seal. but they were final
ly in a region where bear food is scarce
and icebergs rapidly disappear.
There is no doubt that some of these
animals perish by being carried out to
sea on ice foes The bear that lived for
gardens of London, and whose death
some years ago brought grief to many
youthful admirers, was captured When
young on a floating piece of foe ice
south of Spitzbergen. From five to
twenty bears on rare occasions have
been seen on the drifting foe near this
archipelago. The westerly drift. which
heaps great masses of ice against the
eastern shores of Greenland, sometimes
brings bears with it from far-away
Spitzbergen, and there is good evidence
that these immigrants on one occasion
drifted around Cape Farewell to the
western coast of Greenland. where they
were shot The animal is now very
scarce in Danish Greenland and in the
best of seasons only forty to fifty are
killed there and most of them are pill
grims from the north brought down on
the floating foe from Melville bay or
Smith sound
In spite of the reputation of these
animals for timidity the travellers among
them are likely to be impairment A
bear some years ago invaded the en-
trance to an Eskimo winter hut, but
fortunately was slain by the badly
frightened inmates. On another occa-
sion bear thrust his head in through
the membrane which serves the pur-
pose of window glass in one of these
huts, but retreated when the solitary
inmate, a women, pushed a wisp of
blazing hay in his face The woman
might have Jared badly if it had not
been for a hunter who shot the animal
as he was trying to scratch hole
through the wall on the other side of
the hut.
Arctic Nimrods regard the white bear
as Indifferent sport, because it usually
scampers away over the ice fields at the
sight of an enemy or takes to the near
est water. Mr.. Baldwin wrote from
Franz Josef Land that in nine cases out
OF ten hunting the polar pear was
about as much sport as shooting the
family COW, but the mother bear will
fight hard for her cubs, and if she gets
within striking distance of her foe he
has little chance to escape. With mod
ern guns there is often danger of over
confidence.
We may CINE that the conditions
under which the animals sighted by the
Hanover were found were beginning
to be a little uncomfortable. There may
eli al Of ,,1i1d IL
ness in the air which they did not en-
| jov We should look in vain for the
white bear on the south coast of Ice
| land where the warmer waters of the
Atlantic impress him unfavorable
/ for comfort. but he is found on the
north coast Captain Sverdrup did not
| find 1he bear on any of the islands
which he discovered north of the Parry
archipelago or in the neighboring
waters. doubtless for the reason that
the favorite food of the bear is scarce
/ in that region
Thus. while the habitat of the polar
bear girdles the world in the arctic re-
gions it is narrowed even in that zone
| by the food supply. hansen found nc
| form of life north of the eighty fourth
parallel. It is only the unfortunate an
| imaIs which unwittingiy set sail on
| drift ice that get south of the regions
adapted for their home.-New York
Sun