Story highlights Polar bears surround researchers in the Arctic, the WWF says

Researchers tried to scare the bears away with flares but it didn't work

The bears are preventing them from leaving their station to measure sea temperatures

(CNN) Five hungry polar bears have surrounded a team of unarmed researchers at a remote outpost in northern Russia.

The bears have settled in the fields outside a weather station on the island of Vaygach in the Arctic Sea, preventing researchers from leaving the building to conduct their work, the World Wide Fund for Nature in Russia said in a statement.

The team, which consists of two meteorologists and an engineer, tried to scare them off with flares, but the bears were undeterred -- and the Russian WWF says the team has no other weapons at its disposal.

The bears sleep near the station and have been seen fighting with one another outside the building in recent days, one of the researchers at the station told Viktor Nikiforov , the head of the WWF Polar Bear Patrol project.

Read More