Copenhagen...Climate Change, Polar Bears & Cannibalism..Part 2

Polar bear sculpture shapes climate change concern
CBSNews article Part 2, see first part here

Polar bear image being exploited?

"However, there are critics.

Jose Kusugak heads the Kivalliq Inuit Association in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, and doesn't believe polar bears are at risk or in decline. And he doesn't like to see them used to generate sympathy for the cause.

"I have no doubt that the polar bear image is being exploited. They seem to have to use a nice-looking animal to get more money for their cause, so that's why they're using the polar bear," he said.

Coreth said his project isn't political, even though it's funded by the World Wildlife Fund and associated with Polar Bears International, a non-profit organization dedicated to the worldwide conservation of polar bears and their habitat.

The message, he said, should transcend politics.

"We can stop this process if we get ourselves in order," he said about climate change.

A recent report from Polar Bears International suggested the late formation of Arctic sea ice might be forcing some hungry and desperate polar bears in Churchill to resort to cannibalism.

Eight cases of mature male polar bears eating bear cubs have been reported this year among the animals around Churchill, according to scientists.

But Kusugak said the incidents are non-events, and it's wrong to connect the bears' behaviour with starvation. He said it's a normal occurrence among the bears.

Kusugak admitted some communities are having polar bear problems because warmer-than-average temperatures mean sea ice hasn't yet formed properly.

But he disagrees their numbers are dwindling or that polar bears are in other danger because of climate change."

Reading this, I want to make you aware of another article a Canadian friend sent me some days ago, but find here the blog entry of JoAnne Simerson from San Diego from her latest visit in Churchill/Manitoba...Thanks to Diane who made me aware of it too.

Polar Bears: Tundra Heartbreak
Posted at 10:55 am November 27, 2009 by JoAnne Simerson

JoAnne is in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, to study polar bears.

I will open by telling you that this story will break your heart. Please know this will not be easy to read, but it is a story that needs to be told.

On November 20 here in Churchill, just east of Gordon Point, we saw the tragic loss of a 11-month-old cub and the grieving of the loss by its mother. We did not witness the actual death but the aftermath: a young adult female with her cub was attacked by an adult male polar bear. The female lost the battle as the large male overpowered her and killed her cub. Valiantly she charged him and tried to get her cub back, but it was too late.

Soon other bears arrived in the area, but the large male prevailed and began to consume the small body in a hill of willow bushes. Still the mother continued to wander the area with every hope of saving her cub. The male eventually moved the small body out to the coast where the mother had less opportunity to charge him, but he left much of the pelt behind.

The mother continued to circle the male, risking even more harm from the other bears gathering if not from the male. Eventually she moved back to the willows, desperately searching for her cub. What she found was the pelt.

She picked the pelt up in her mouth, carrying it and swinging her head side to side, a behavior that bears do in extreme stress. The mother charged at the other bears, never dropping her precious possession. She wandered in this manner for a long time. We left her at dark still very unsettled, but she had finally placed her cub’s remains near a willow bush, protected from the wind.

It was indeed heartbreaking. We don’t really understand why this sometimes happens. But in my nine years of visiting Churchill, it is the first time I have seen this. Many of my colleagues who have been here for decades have not witnessed this. We don’t know why, but this is the third cub death this year caused by another bear. I can only hope this is not a sign of what is to come as we lose yet more ice to our warming climate.

JoAnne Simerson is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

Source & photo credits: JoAnne Simerson's blog

Related article: The Star.com/28.11.2009

Bears not only in the freezer: The Ice Bear Project ...Copenhagen & London

'When the skeleton begins to appear, it's going to become terrifying.'—Sculptor Mark Coreth

"Of all species in the history of life on this planet, there has been one whose ability to leave its mark has been like no other... Us! With the application of our brains and the use of our hands, we have sculpted this world and our endeavour has covered its surface, from the deserts to the Poles.

Along with tools for cutting and clearing, our ancestors shaped artifacts, to help express their place and their struggle. Human hands created the incised mammoth tusk, the cave paintings, the carved offerings, and across tens of thousands of years, these still appeal to our senses and communicate ideas. These hands, which can over exploit our world, can also capture its essence and that essence, characterised as art, touches our emotions and can change us.

So, at a time, when through science, evidence of humankind's extraordinary destructive ability is being revealed, it is through art that we can express our emotional response. "(extract from The Ice Bear Project)

Polar bear sculpture shapes climate change concern

"A British sculptor carving a polar bear out of ice, with a bronze skeleton inside, hopes to make a powerful environmental message when the Arctic animal art piece melts.

Mark Coreth started creating the ice polar bear on Friday in Kongens Nytorv Square in Copenhagen, Denmark, close to where nearly 20,000 people are expected to attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from Dec. 7 to 18.

Coreth got the idea after visiting Churchill, Man., in November, and observing the bears and the sea ice.

He said he was struck by the plight of the animals due to climate change, and became convinced "that we have got to do something about this and do it quick."

At 1.8 metres, the bear sculpture will be the same height as the average thickness of the floating sea ice in the Arctic Ocean as measured during the Catlin Arctic Survey earlier this year, he said.

Observers will be encouraged to be interactive with the sculpture, he added, saying that anyone who touches it will help change the shape and "represent the human aspect of warming the planet.

"We hope that this creative act will bring home to each person how humanity has the power to affect the delicate balance of nature," he said.

Coreth doesn't know how long it will take for the ice bear to melt into a pool of water, but as it does, he hopes it will send a message to the world.

"When the skeleton begins to appear, it's going to become terrifying. When the bronze appears, it is going to take warmth through the skeleton and melt that ice even more," he said. "That is akin to a lack of ice in the arctic north — the deep, dark ocean absorbs heat and continues to melt it."

Coreth said his idea has been strongly supported by Arctic scientists and researchers.

"It's extraordinary how the scientists, every one of them, have come up and said this is the message we want people to have, we want to tell people this," he said. "They've given it a complete blessing."

Coreth also has the support of federal Liberal David McGuinty, Canada's critic for energy and the environment, who will be in Copenhagen as part of this country's official delegation at the conference.

He hopes it'll shame the Harper government into signing onto a global climate deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

"There's no doubt in my mind that Canada has moved from leader to laggard on the international scene," McGuinty said.

(read full CBS article here, there is a second part on which I will refer in a second posting)

And here a BBC article about Mark Coreth , his bears, his projects and his vision... By the way, he is not only on his own , there are Ice Bear People linked to the Ice Bear Project.

The man with bears in the freezer
Sarah Jones/3 November 2009
BBC

In amongst the broad beans and vegetable samosas, in a freezer in North London, are the latest creations of Wiltshire sculptor Mark Coreth.

Coreth isn't known for doing things by halves.

Back in 2007 he got his chainsaw around a mountain of polystyrene blocks to create a jumbo-sized (literally) African bull elephant in his garden.

Two years on and he's got another supersized project on the go, a life-sized ice bear on Trafalgar Square.

Few sculptors can boast a massive three-ton white African bull elephant, in their back garden, let alone two 12 foot long hunting polar bears in the freezer.

Polar bear skeletons in the freezer

But as of last month, Mark Coreth can when his latest creations - two Arctic bear bronze skeletons - went on ice in an industrial-sized freezer somewhere in North London.

It's the extreme sculptor's latest project that will see Trafalgar Square's Northern Terrace playing host to a prowling ice bear in the run-up to Christmas:

"What in fact I'm doing," says Mark, "is to combine bronze and ice in a piece that I hope is going to be incredibly powerful.

"I'm going to carve the polar bear in ice. It will essentially be an ice bear and as the ice melts it will reveal a skeleton, a pool of water and a very powerful message."

It was back in 2007 that Mark made his first trip to the Arctic and witnessed first-hand the receding sea ice and the effects of global warming on the Arctic's polar bears. It was then that he decided to bring the Arctic to the world:

"I was sitting on the sea ice with this enormous and beautiful iceberg that had been born thousands of years back. And lo and behold along comes a daft little sculptor from Tisbury, with an ice axe, who starts to chip a polar bear out of it.

"That's when I thought 'wow' this is incredibly exciting. A little bit like graffiti a little bit naughty but very sculpturally pleasing."

With the idea of a life-size polar bear sculpture, hewn out of a block of white ice, Mark approached an ice sculpting firm in Wimbledon to get to grips with the techniques of ice sculpting.

But learning to get a chisel around a giant ice cube has been the least of his problems. And in fact creating a giant ice cube, big enough to chisel a polar bear out of, has been far from straight forward:

"Although it's taking six weeks to freeze, it's relatively quick frozen," says Mark.

"But the ice doesn't just freeze beautifully from inside outwards. So unless you keep that water moving, breaking it up and topping it up slowly you'll actually end up with a huge box of ice water."

Chainsaw massacre on Trafalgar Square

But leaking tanks and runny ice aside, the ice bears are now safely on ice in an enormous industrial warehouse freezer amongst, as Mark puts it, millions of broad beans, prawns and an unbelievable number of boxes of vegetable samosas.

With one ice bear destined for the World Wildlife Fund's Big Tent exhibition in Copenhagen, on 5 December, and the other for the North Terrace of Trafalgar Square on Friday 11 December, Mark has his work cut out for him. Especially when he's being restricted, by Westminster, with what he uses to cut his work:

"To some extent the initial carve will be done with a chain saw but apparently," admits Mark, "Westminster is a little windy of me having a chainsaw massacre on Trafalgar Square.

"So I think I'm restricted to my chisel."

Armed with just his simple long-handled ice chisel, albeit with a blade sharp enough to shave with, Mark will be whittling a 12 foot long and 6 foot high striding 'big beastie' not only in front of the National gallery but in front of a crowd as well:

"I'm going to have a crack at doing it as fast as I possibly can," says Mark. "I'm hoping within the day but I do work quite fast. It will be a whole day of sculpting in a slightly theatrical way.

"It's actually visually beautiful because you've got this very sharp ice chisel and sort of slicing through it and particles of ice flying everywhere and as you carve another bit away you're revealing this bear."

Sculpting in underpants

But with the cost of freezing giant polar bear sized blocks of ice making test runs out of the question, it's not only going to be, as Mark puts, a little bit of belt and braces but hard graft as well:

"On the square at 7am," says Mark, "and as far as I'm aware the press invading come midday. So there's a pretty major time limit.

"And it is a high energy form of work and I think you may well find me stripped down to my underpants but I promise to go no further."

With planning permission for the polar bear skeleton to remain on the square for just 10 days, and no idea of how long it will take for the ice bear to melt, Mark is keen to re-incarnate his ice bear in squares around the world:

"I'm hoping to send the skeleton to different cities around the world," says Mark, "where we'll go through the same process.

"Imagine if we can get a bear in Red Square, a bear in Tiananmen Square and to finish off at the Olympics in London would be, I think, very poignant."

If you want to see Mark Coreth in action, head down to Trafalgar Square from 7am onwards on Friday 11 December. Or if you'd like to get your hands on the ice bear, and Mark is keen to get thousands of people touching it, then the ice bear or ice bear skeleton will be on the Northern Terrace for a further 10 days.

Sources: CBSNews & BBC Wiltshire

Related :
-Mark Coreth's website , Ice Bear Project & Blog
-Mark Coreth's Ice Bear Projects: Copenhagen & London (Dec 11/Trafalgar Square)

-Kurzmeldung zum Projekt Kopenhagen auf Deutsch hier/5.Dezember

Ulli J hat im Knutitis-Forum eine tolle deutsche Übersetzung des CBSNews-Artikels gepostet, ein Video von der Kopenhagen-Aktion gibt es hier!

Ursula - Der Film...The movie!

Thanks to the digging of a bear from Chicago, our friend Dostoy, and of Barbara from Jadebusen, the Aussenposten proudly presents Ursula on TV .

It's a 16 minutes clip with historical documents of the zoo in Copenhagen/Denmark which celebrated recently it's 150th anniversary. It's not only about Ursula and it might take some time to see the whole clip, especially when you have a a very slow connection, but enjoy anyway!

Here an extract of what you can expect :

"Quite interesting footage with some cool facts. Some of them:
The elephant seal was purchased from Hagenbeck and named "Goliath".
The malayan bear grotto was torn down in 1969. Now prairie dogs live there.
The ostrich-house now houses giant anteaters.
One of the two komodo dragons later went to Stockholm. The other one attracted 50.000 visitors to the terrarium in three months.
The little bear cub "Ursula" became extremely famous worldwide for being the first kodiak bear born outside of North America.
The okapi arriving by plane was a gift from the Belgish government.
And the Bear Grottos are the only exhibits from this film that are still in use today. They have since been expanded and renovated but are still due for a complete makeover!"

Und hier Barbaras deutsche Ankündigung gestern im KnutHome2-Magazin...

@ Frau Birgit from Africa
...Es gibt "bewegte Bilder" von Ursula in einem 16-Minuten-Film mit historischen Aufnahmen, den der ZOO KØBENHAVN aus Anlass seines 150jährigen Bestehens zusammengestellt hat. Wir sehen wie Ursula auf einem Zoospaziergang das Interesse anderer Zoobewohner weckt und vielleicht auch für einen leckeren Snack gehalten wird, aber nicht von den Eisbären.....

Ein Filmausschnitt zeigt fünf Eisbären in ihrem Gehege mit Pool und Wasserfall.
Auch für die Okapi- und für die Brillenbärenliebhaber ist etwas dabei."

Und alles auf Dänisch! - And be prepared...it's all in Danish!

Photo credit: Irene Rysgaard,Bärchen Ursula, Kosmos-Verlag, Stuttgart

Ursula - die kleine Bärin

Diese feine kleine Maus ist keine Maus, aber ein Kodiakbär. Ursula. Ein handaufgezogenes Kodiakbärchen aus dem Zoo in Kopenhagen. Geboren am 10. Februar 1952 hätte sie heute Geburtstag gehabt, ein guter Anlass, ihre Geschichte jetzt bekannter zu machen und zur Verfügung zu stellen.Aber nicht , ohne Ulli J zu danken, deren Eintrag am 10.September in Knuts altem Headquarter, Simba erst aufmerksam machte.

Ulli J. meinte am 10.09.2008 07:28

@Ursi:

Dein “Aufsatz” über die Abstammung des Menschen vom Bären und die daraus resultierende Erkenntnis, dass der Name Ursula kleine Bärin bedeutet, hat mich an ein Buch erinnert, dass ich als Kind gelesen habe.Es heißt “Bärchen Ursula” und ist ein Tagebuch, dass Irene Rysgaard schrieb, als sie Anfang der fünfziger Jahre ein Kodiakbären Jungtier aufzog. Und weil ich sehr nervig sein kann, wenn ich etwas erreichen möchte, hat mein erwachsener Sohn, der meine Kinderbücher geerbt hat, das Buch aus der Kiste, in der es vor langer Zeit verschwunden ist, ans Tageslicht befördert. - Er ist recht geduldig mit seiner leicht verrückten Mutter. -Es ist ein dünnes Buch und so konnte ich es gestern Abend durchlesen. Ich denke es würde dir und anderen aus dem Blog gut gefallen.Ursulas Eltern waren Urs und Ursa, zwei Kodiakbären, die 1947 im Brookfield Zoo in Chicago geboren wurden und schließlich 1951 in Dänemark im Zoo von Kopenhagen landeten. Hier kam Ursula mitten im Winter zur Welt. Sie wurde von ihrer Mutter nicht angenommen. So wurde Irene Rysgaard Ersatzmutter. Schwarzweiß Fotos, die einen nostalgischen Scharm haben, illustrieren das Tagebuch, das von Zahnkrämpfen, durchwachten Nächten und Bärenspielen erzählt.

So, und nun lest selbst ! Hier oder nebenan in der K-Files Liste, wie sonst auch, geht's zum Ursula-Download. Nicht vergessen, bitte lest vorher die Anweisungen, damit es auch ein freier Download bleibt für euch.

English Summary

This is Ursula. Ursula was born on February 10, 1952, in the Zoo of Copenhagen in Denmark. It was the first time ever that a Kodiak cub was born in Europe and more important, that it survived. Ursula's biological parents were Urs and Ursa, two Kodiak bears born 1947 as first Kodiaks born in captivity in Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. They were sent 1951 to Copenhagen, and only one year later their offspring arrived but was rejected by Ursa, the mother. It was Irene Rysgaard, the wife of a zoo inspector and living in the zoo , who took Ursula in, taking care of her.The story of the little bear which had to be hand-raised made headlines all around the world, similar to Knut's story 2 years ago, and was even shown on TV in the USA. But already one year later, the fame was gone, Ursula had become a grown bear, just one bear among others. She was given to Helsinki Zoo in Finland where she died some years later. Unfortunately we did not find more details about Ursula and her parents on the net. Ulli J, who wrote to the Zoo in Copenhagen got some of these infos by Peter Haase, the head of the Exhibit Department. It is thanks to UlliJ who - in September last year- remembered this little book from her childhood, mentioning it lovingly in Knut's blog. Simba got really excited about it and left a note for UlliJ, that's how it started...We think the book with its charming photos and the description in form of a diary of the first weeks deserves being recognized by a wider public as a document of first experiences of hand-raising bears.
The original Danish edition of Irene Rysgaard published in 1954(maybe even a bit earlier) was translated into German by Dr. Erna Mohr, a famous zoologist in Germany who deserves an extra article one day.

You can download the German edition as pdf file here or in the K-files column as usual, it's free as all the K-files as long as you follow the instructions carefully. As far as we know, there is no English edition, but it's worth it, even if it's just for the beautiful photos...

Thank you, UlliJ, not only for scanning the book and making it so available for us but also for your enthusiasm sharing information and to respond to Simba's request, it was one of her last ones'!

Das Buch:
- Irene Rysgaard/Dr.Erna Mohr: Bärchen Ursula, Kosmos-Verlag(später Franckh'sche-VA) , Stuttgart

-Publikationen von Dr. Erna Mohr finden sich hier