MONTREAL (AFP) – A polar bear was noticed on Saturday (April 30) in the Quebec area of Canada, prompting wildlife officers to warn residents of a small town shocked by this very uncommon look.
The bear – whose species has change into a image of the hazards of world warming – was seen in the morning hours in Madeleine-Centre in the Gaspesia area, a peninsula alongside the south financial institution of the Saint Lawrence River, witnesses stated.
As at Saturday afternoon, officers have been nonetheless looking for the animal.
“The dog was barking and I heard my partner yell, ‘There’s a bear, there’s a bear!’” stated Ms Sophie Bonneville, who lives in the town of two,000 folks situated 800km east of Montreal.
Quebec provincial police put out a tweet warning folks concerning the bear sighting and urging them to remain indoors.
Ms Bonneville stated no person in town had ever seen a polar bear to date south, not even wildlife officers.
“People thought it was a joke,” she advised AFP. “How could a bear cross the ice pack, swim and make it here? Even people on the north bank have not seen such a thing,” she stated.
Police patrolled the area, the place mountain climbing is common.
“We went door to door to tell people to stay indoors,” Quebec provincial police spokesman Stephane Tremblay advised AFP. He stated he had by no means seen a polar bear in this space, both.
“With climate change, anything is possible,” stated Ms Bonneville, who managed to snap a couple of photographs of the bear earlier than it wandered off into a wooded space.
“What is worrisome is, why did it come here? Was it global warming? Or was it just a mistake of nature?” she mused.
In Canada, polar bears – the planet’s largest land carnivores – are listed as a “vulnerable” species.
A 2020 research printed in Nature Climate Change stated local weather change may result in their extinction as world warming causes the gradual melting of the Arctic ice pack.
