Hudson and the polarbear.

Quite some time ago there was a series of  these photos doing the rounds on the work emails.

The email contained some amazing photos of a group of dogs and a Polar Bear. I suspected that the brief story that accompanied the slides was bogus, and that the animals were from some zoo, or had been domesticated¹
Well for those not yet familiar with this story,  it turns out the whole event was in fact quite true….

German photographer Norbert Rosing and Hunter/Trapper Brian Ladoon were out taking some sunset photographs of his Huskies near the shore of Canada’s Hudson bay mid-November 1992.
Without warning they were interrupted by a 1200 pound Polar Bear which was moving in quickly on one of the dogs named Hudson. 
Polar Bears in the area had not eaten in over four months as  the Hudson bay had yet to freeze over, preventing them from hunting their usual diet of seal.
As Hudson was chained to a stake, Norbert, fully expected that he was about to witness the dog’s death.

What happened next was quite remarkable:

The bear closed in. Did Hudson howl in terror and try to flee? On the contrary. He wagged his tail, grinned, and actually bowed to the bear, as if in invitation. The bear responded with enthusiastic body language and non-aggressive facial signals. These two normally antagonistic species were speaking the same language: “Let’s play!”
The romp was on. For several minutes dog and bear wrestled and cavorted. Once the bear completely wrapped himself around the dog like a friendly white cloud. Bear and dog then embraced, as if in sheer abandon. Overheated by his smaller playmate’s shenanigans, the bear lay down and called for a time-out.
Every evening for more than a week the bear returned to play with one of the dogs. Finally the ice formed, and he set off for his winter habitat.

This behavior has been witnessed repeatedly in Churchill but has not been reported elsewhere in the Arctic. Throughout the region, polar bears occasionally kill and eat sled dogs.
Why should the Churchill bears behave so differently? Although he has not seen the phenomenon, biologist Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service says that the fall fasting of these Hudson Bay bears slows their metabolism so much that “they can almost be hibernating on their feet.” Perhaps that saved the dog’s life. But why would the bear play rather than attack?
This is an open question, and it fascinates me.

:: Stuart L Brown; Animals At Play, 1994 issue of National Geographic ::

You can check out the amazing photos for yourself, along with commentary by Stuart Brown:

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1. a domesticated Polar Bear? Yeah, right.  But Ian, he just looks so cute and cuddly…cant we have one pleeease? [↩]