Photo by Dmitry Koch
It was the polar bears that lived in the abandoned Arctic weather station 30 years ago. Russian photographer Dmitry Koch has captured the astonishing sight of polar bears living in the Arctic. [Image] Polar bears living in abandoned ruins 30 years ago In 2021, Mr. Koch embarked on a journey to capture the appearance of polar bears on Wrangel Island in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Wrangel is an island listed as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site and known as a breeding ground for polar bears. But Koch and his party encountered an unexpected sight when they stopped at Kolyuchin Island to escape from bad weather. Kolyutin Island is a small island with an Arctic weather station built during the Soviet Union. It closed in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the building still stands after the people left. "As we approached the island by boat to avoid the storm, we noticed something moving in the windows of the abandoned building," Koch wrote in The Guardian. One of them looked through binoculars and saw a polar bear peeking out the window. In addition, there were about 20 of them around the building. Koch shares photos of the polar bears he took on Kolyuchin Island on his website and Instagram. The polar bear's gestures and facial expressions are clearly visible in the photo, but Koch and his colleagues did not approach the polar bear directly, but rather used a drone with a low-noise propeller to take the picture in a special way that did not frighten them. Moreover, the camera captures not only the beauty of nature and the surreal world, but also the garbage problem of the Arctic. Koch wrote of a photo of a polar bear walking around a drum: “The garbage problem is well known. For example, about 12 million fuel drums are scattered along the coast, which were brought in during the Soviet era. In addition, there are abandoned villages, construction waste, etc. Now it is very expensive to get rid of everything.The government seems to have started a cleanup plan, but I hope a solution is found. Why did polar bears live in buildings abandoned by humans? Intrigued, Koch asked biologist Anatoly Kochnev why. Kochnev then told me an interesting story, in addition to the curious nature of polar bears and the reason they protect themselves from humans. For reasons we don't know, about every nine years, ice floes stay close to the coast during the summer, says Konetiff. As a result, the polar bears may not be able to move north and remain on Kolyuchin Island to live in the weather station. Corroborating Konetich's words, Koch explained that he encountered few polar bears on Wrangel Island, north of Kolyuchin Island, where he later moved. Polar bears, the symbol of the Arctic, are threatened by climate change. Polar bears use sea ice to catch and migrate prey, and the ice is thinning at a rapid pace. In a 2021 study, Columbia University researchers warned that if carbon dioxide emissions continue at current rates, summer sea ice will disappear and polar bears will be extinct by 2100. . The future of living things is uncertain, but Koch says that seeing a polar bear peeking out from a collapsing building made him feel that life would continue even after the man-made structure was destroyed. "Life will go on forever, if we take care of it," he told Live Science.
