More than 50 Polar bears reached Belyushya Guba, a village on the northern Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Nearly 10 of them even explored the streets and entered buildings in search of food. The local authorities have declared a state of emergency for a week till helps come from Moscow. The increasing global warming in the Arctic indicates man-animal conflicts, as the intrusion of the rare species is likely to increase, until concrete measures in this direction are seriously taken.

Photos of the incident went viral as some of the residents are blaming authorities for ignoring a sprawling garbage dump, where the animals feasted on the food waste. But experts are of the view that the main reason the bears came so close to humans was the late freezing of the sea, because of which they couldn’t hunt seals forcing them to look for alternate food sources.

Russia has increased its footprint in the Arctic in search of energy projects, strategic military interests and navigation and therefore more clashes between humans and bears are expected to rise.

Biologist Anatoly Kochnev, who studied polar bears in the eastern Arctic says, “Development in the Arctic will definitely increase conflict with humans, especially now that the polar bear is losing its life platform in several regions and coming ashore”.

Novaya Zemlya is an archipelago of two islands between the Kara and Barents seas that fall inside the polar bear habitat. According to Polar Bears International, Bears in the Barents Sea are seeing the fastest ice reduction losing 20 weeks of ice a year over the last few decades.

Ilya Mordvintsev, who is associated with the Severtsov Institute in Moscow was also part of the group of scientists who were sent to aid the village says, “Ice monitoring shows that previously, ice near Belyushya Guba formed in December. For thousands of years, Bears migrated this time of year to hunt seals. This year they came to the shore and there was no ice. But it’s impossible to rule out a repeat of the situation in the coming years”.

As more humans have started coming to Novaya Zemlya, there is more likelihood in the increase of the human-bear conflict. Novaya Zemlya is a Soviet-era nuclear weapon testing site, which remains a restricted territory. But following a post-Soviet hiatus, the military has put up new buildings and an aerodrome. New contingents of the military were deployed in Belyushya Guba in the year 2018. The area now has schools and large sports complex for military families, comprising of more than 2,000 people.