Ryrkaypiy is a village in Chukotka, whose name can be translated as “climbing walrus”. There is a school, kindergarten, district hospital, shops. At the same time, an alarming “Caution! A polar bear has been spotted in the village!” This is a call to action by the “Bear Patrol”, which has been protecting residents from the “masters of the Arctic” for many years. And so the snowmobile rushes into the icy gloom, so that both the inhabitants of Ryrkapi and the red book predators who find themselves close to people will not suffer from meeting each other.
Polar bears in the vicinity of the village of Ryrkaypiy. Photo: Maxim Deminov/ TASS
Next door to the predators
Valery Kalyarakht, a resident of Ryrkaypiy, is an experienced St. John’s wort. In his spare time, he travels around his native village when the settlement is still asleep, so that children can safely go to schools and kindergartens, and adults to work. You can meet a dangerous predator with sharp teeth and claws here literally at any turn, and the rules of behavior in this case are taught to kids in Ryrkapi almost from the cradle.
— I was born in Ryrkapi, and grew up on Wrangel Island, which is also called the “cradle of polar bears,” says Valery Kalyarakht. — Previously, only our parents instructed us how to behave when meeting with a predator, today we come to schools, hold open lessons, lectures in order to avoid conflict situations that could end in death for each of the parties to an unplanned meeting. We ask all adults to buy a regular whistle for the children. Shy and disoriented from the human presence, predators are very afraid of a sharp piercing sound.
Historically, the Chukchi villages of Ryrkaypiy, Billings, and Cape Schmidt are on the migration route of polar bears, and the rightful “masters of the Arctic” often visit people. Environmentalists cite the reasons for this atypical behavior of predators as the search for food in populated areas, the lack of ice on the coast caused by climate change, and the human impact on the Arctic ecosystem.
It was the huge influx of predators into the Wild, which ended with the attack on the girl, that led to the idea and organization of the work of the “Bear Patrol”. In 2019, the village of Ryrkaypiy was besieged by polar bears for almost a month: several dozen predators literally surrounded the village and did not go into the sea due to the lack of ice.
“I was on a business trip at the time, but the village administration tearfully asked me to return to Ryrkaypiy to drive away the predators,” says Kalyarakht. — The government organized a helicopter quickly enough, I joined in, but the case was also helped by an incident: journalists ran here in bright jumpsuits, and they clicked their camera shutters so hard that it seems the bears could not stand such close attention to themselves and began to gradually move further away from the village.
An experienced St. John’s Wort says: even a cellophane bag can scare away a polar bear, which can weigh up to 700 kg.
— We also teach children this: if you see a bear, start growling, screaming, raise your hands up, rustle the bag, backpack, and squeal food, — advises Valery Kalyarakht. — But we recommend running only if you know for sure that there is a place to hide. Polar bears, unlike their brown counterparts, do not run very fast, but still they are just as dangerous predators and can succumb to the instinct of pursuit.
According to him, in the middle of winter, the “Bear Patrols” in Chukotka have a kind of vacation: usually predators move after the drifting ice, approaching the coast, in autumn and at the very beginning of winter, and after that they are not visible for weeks.
“At the same time, up to 200 bears pass by us in a season, and we have to interact with many of them,” says Kalyarakht.
People are just guests
Tatiana Minenko, a resident of Ryrkaypiy, a Chukchanka, came face to face with a polar bear as an adult, walking with a stroller where her newborn daughter was sleeping peacefully. The woman remembers this moment reluctantly, saying, “it was like in slow motion.”
— I’m walking through the village with my daughter and I see a polar bear rushing towards me from the central square. I froze, stood in front of the wheelchair, and he flew so close that I felt his hot breath,” recalls Tatiana Minenko. — Suddenly, someone’s strong hands snatch me out of this stupor: I literally lost consciousness and came to my senses only near the entrance. It turned out that a random passerby saved me and my daughter, whose name I didn’t even have time to ask. He dragged me to safety almost by the scruff of my neck, and the memory of those minutes still makes me shiver.
Many years have passed since that meeting, and today Tatiana Minenko heads the “Bear Patrol” in the village of Ryrkaypiy in Chukotka. The “masters of the Arctic” listen to her, she speaks to them affectionately but confidently, rarely resorting to using the “hunter’s signal”.
— I’m talking to them. I say, “Get out of here! This is not your home! Your house is on the other side, and here you can get hurt,” she reveals her secret of communication. — Each bear is different, just like a human: one will run away quickly, and the other needs to be persuaded. These predators follow walruses on their heels, so when there are a lot of walruses on the coast, then bears roam here. There was a period when there was no ice for several years in a row, then we had everything here — both walruses and bears. And now, for several years now, the ice has been standing steadily in the sea for the whole summer, and it’s good for everyone: both bears and walruses.
When asked if it’s scary to look into the eyes of wild animals every time, Tatiana Minenko replies that only very stupid people have no fear. She always carries a rocket launcher with her, but rarely uses it — more often her voice and growl.
— One day I was mopping the floor in the entrance, I heard someone shouting: “Bear! The bear!” I look, and he’s spinning around a dumpster. I started to drive him away with a mop,” says Tatiana Minenko. — It probably looked quite funny from the outside: a woman cursing in Chukchi and growling in Russian with a mop in her hands is chasing a bear weighing more than half a ton around a power pole. The bear could not stand such humiliation — he skipped away towards the sea.
Today, Tatiana Minenko, along with colleagues from the Bear Patrol, are invited to teach classes for young residents of Chukotka — to tell them about the experience gained over the years.
— The main thing I teach children is to understand that bears should be treated with respect. Every resident of Ryrkaipia should remember that these are people who came and live on their territory. Bears are the owners here, and people are just guests,” says the Chukchanka.
By Ulyana Lavtsevich
