(CNN) Dozens of polar bears have crowded a village in Russia's far east in search for food, forcing public events to be canceled and humans to shelter inside.

About 60 polar bears descended on Ryrkaypiy in Russia's remote Chukotka region, Tatyana Minenko, the head of the village's "bear patrol" told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

The polar bears are eating the carcasses of walruses that have remained on the village's shores since the fall, the Russian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said Thursday in a statement.

"Almost all of the bears are thin," said Minenko in the WWF statement. "Among them are both adults and young animals; there are females with cubs of different ages," she said.

Ryrkaypiy has a population of about 500 residents, according to state news agency TASS. It is situated near the shore of the Arctic Ocean and faces Wrangel Island, known to be a "maternity house" for polar bears, TASS said.

Volunteers and residents have stepped up bear patrols around the village.

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