Later this century, forecasterssay, the sea ice that covers most of the Arcticwill be reduced to a strip above Greenland and Canada. It will become a refuge for polar bears and other wild creatures as they fight to survive.
We see evidence of the kill first: a shockinglybroad spread ofscarlet, probably the blood of a ringed seal, on snow-covered sea ice. Then the polar bear appears. She's big, maybe 500 pounds, trailed by a single cub. They've just jumped into a lead—a long fissure of open water in the frozen sea.
In seconds they're out of the water again, running across the ice, spookedby the approach of our helicopter. Prolonged running can harm polar bears: Fat and fur insulate them so well they risk overheating. Franois Létourneau-Cloutier, our 33-year-old Québécois pilot, takes us higher, and the mother and cub slow to an amble.
After following them for several minutes, Létourneau-Cloutier sets the helicopter gentlyonto the ice a few hundred feet away and cuts the engine. The mother rises on her hindlegs, assessing our 35-foot-long fpk10,lying machine with the unruffledgaze of the Arctic's top predator; the cub remains on all fours behind her. For a few timeless moments we savor the scene—bears against an otherwise empty i妹妹ensity of snow and ice, countless shallow pools of meltwater reflecting a high su妹妹er sun ringed by faint halosof red and blue.