In These Last Days Of Winter – International Polar Bear Day – Celebrating the strange and the shadowy, the damned and unseen

I missed 2019’s International Polar Bear Day because my life at the time was imploding. I missed 2020’s International Polar Bear Day because I was too depressed to open my eyes.

I feel desperately sad about the decline of the world’s polar bear population. As reports about bears needing to swim staggeringly long distances to find food have become more frequent, I’ve often found my sadness to be almost overwhelming.

In an article written by Phoebe Weston and published in The Guardian on the 24th of February 2021, I read that polar bears (and narwhals) are ‘using up to four times as much energy to survive because of major ice loss…’ I also learned that the food a polar bear would need to consume to equal the energy they’d get from the blubber of a single adult ringed seal would be ‘…approximately 1.5 caribou, 37 Arctic char, 74 snow geese, 216 snow goose eggs (ie 54 nests with four eggs per clutch) or 3m crowberries…’ I’ll let that sink in.

But, as Polar Bears International express on their website ‘there’s still time to save polar bears and Arctic sea ice.’ And that’s what I tell myself whenever I feel my hope dwindle after reading another devastating report.

Polar Bears International

PBI have a Get Involved page on their website where they’ve broken down the best ways in which you can take immediate action, based on your job, passion or network. It’s well worth familiarizing yourself with their website as its packed with a wealth of invaluable information.

I encourage you to check out Actions With Impact, Living Alongside Polar Bears, Research Q&A and the Bear Tracker. I hadn’t visited their YouTube channel before today, but I’ve just subscribed and know where I’m going to be spending many hours in the coming days. I’ve just started watching the video below and it’s excellent.

Mother Ice Bear – A Poem

For my contribution today, I’d like to share a poem I wrote some years ago. It appeared on my spoken word album Arctic Fever, made in collaboration with Crown Of Asteria. It’s called Mother Ice Bear. It isn’t a poem to enjoy. It’s supposed to make you feel uncomfortable, enraged and eager to enact change. Click on the image below if you’d like to hear it.

I’d also like to share some special, handcrafted polar bear items I’ve gathered from Etsy. They can, in unique ways, remind you, your family and others you engage with, to reflect on the global concern of climate change, the challenges polar bears face, and the things we can all do to make a positive difference to their threatened lives.