A rare encounter between a polar bear and a black bear was captured in the Torngat Mountains earlier this week. (Submitted by Jon Sigurdsson)
When Jon Sigurdsson from Hafnarfjordur in Iceland was travelling in the Torngat Mountains earlier this week, he captured a sight on his camera he thought he would never see — a mother polar bear fighting a black bear.
Sigurdsson described the encounter as remarkable and unexpected, they were travelling down from Baffin Island into the Torngat Mountains and Sigurdsson told the CBC that he had been seeing plenty of polar bears.
But on Tuesday, they saw a mother and her cub on the shore eating a seal.
“This was quite enjoyable to witness, we kept a good distance. And all of a sudden we saw another mother and cub, also polar bears. And they approached and there was a little fight between the mothers, but apparently there was enough of seal,” said Sigurdsson.
Two pairs of mother and polar bear cubs share a seal carcass. (Submitted by Jon Sigurdsson)
He told the CBC that the two pairs of mothers and cubs shared the seal carcass but it was what happened next that was extraordinary.
The black bear thought it would be able to get in on the action and share with the polar bears. (Submitted by Jon Sigurdsson )
“We could see a, a black bear, a little bit further up the hill approaching the polar bears and we said to ourselves that this is not going to happen. There is not going to be any sort of confrontation but the black bear continued and it made its way all the way to the polar bears. And the, the polar bears were not happy with this, with it. And there was an attack,” said Sigurdsson.
The polar bears were eating well that day in the Torngat Mountains. (Submitted by Jon Sigurdsson)
Sigurdsson said the mother polar bear scared off the black bear.
In his years travelling, Sigurdsson said he had never seen anything like this.
He had previously heard stories of other folks in the same area they were in seeing polar bears and black bears in the same area, but nothing like that encounter. Sigurdsson and his colleagues have been searching for photos of similar encounters but have found very little.
“It feels really enjoyable being able to to share this and so people can see what, what happened. Many people don’t believe this is actual, it’s some kind of AI generated, but it it’s not, so that, it feels really good.”
Sigurdsson says he will remember the day for the rest of his life.
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