Adam Roy
A bear naps on the tundra near Churchill, Manitoba.
Adam Roy
The tundra around Churchill, Manitoba, is home to just over 900 polar bears, and is the world's most popular destination for viewing the animals.
Adam Roy
Polar bear encounters are most common in October and November, when the region's bears gather on the shore of Hudson Bay to wait for the annual freeze.
Adam Roy
Two polar bears spar. These playful matches rarely end in injury, but they prepare male bears for the brutal fighting that goes on during mating season.
Adam Roy
A polar bear sits on the shore of Hudson Bay. Churchill's bears depend on the bay's annual freeze to hunt their main prey, ringed and bearded seals.
Adam Roy
Tourists and film crews view the bears from buggies, huge all-terrain buses that are constructed almost entirely in Churchill.
Adam Roy
Two polar bears spar as tourists watch. Polar Bears International and Explore.org stream the polar bears' annual migration from a specially-equipped buggy that can stay out on the tundra for a week at a time.
Adam Roy
Polar bears' vulnerability to climate change has made them a poster species for global warming. Researchers estimate that western Hudson Bay's bear population could disappear within the next 30 years.
Adam Roy
While some people hope that polar bears will be able to adapt to a warming world, polar bear researcher Andrew Derocher of the University of Alberta says that's fantasy. "The problem is, they're a highly-evolved species to deal with an extremely specialized habitat," he says. "They make their living eating the fat of seals. You take that away from them, there's no way they can persist."
Adam Roy
A mother bear and her two cubs wander through the tundra.
Adam Roy
A young bear peers through a grate in a buggy's floor.
Adam Roy
A sign warns pedestrians away from an area frequented by polar bears.
Adam Roy
A dog protects its food from a polar bear at a kennel outside Churchill. Conflicts between humans and bears have increased over the past decade as sea ice has diminished.
Adam Roy
Polar bears that can't be frightened away from human settlements are captured and housed in a "jail" run by Manitoba Conservation until they can be relocated.
Adam Roy
Churchill's port has been suggested as a possible export point for oil from Alberta's tar sands, and could be one of the few possible sources of revenue to the town if a decline in the polar bear population causes the local tourism industry to collapse.
Adam Roy
A ptarmigan camouflages itself against the snow. Besides polar bears, various species, including belugas, arctic owls, bearded seals, red and arctic foxes, and wolves, call the Churchill area home.
Adam Roy
While Manitoba doesn't have a polar bear hunt, traditional and sport hunting in other areas has a significant impact on populations. Thirty-seven bears were taken by hunters in the western Hudson Bay region in 2011.
Adam Roy
With males reaching weights of 1,500 pounds, polar bears are the world's largest terrestrial carnivores.
Adam Roy
A pair of bears spar in the snow.
