(typing)
- We were just packing up camp.
I think I was loading my boat with gear
when somebody spotted a polar bear on the horizon.
- It's a bear!
We have a polar bear!
Out on the ice.
And it's wondering towards us.
- Luckily we had this huge open beach,
so we could see him from a ways off,
and we were able to get ready,
and get the pepper spray, and the bear flares.
Initially, he didn't seem to care too much about us.
He seemed to be just on his way,
just cruising down the beach looking for food.
It wasn't until he got closer that he started
becoming a little too interested in us.
- Oh, he's looking.
He's really checking us out now.
If he does get close, we're exactly right for me
to use the bear spray because he's downwind.
- And there's enough of us here that
we can make a bit of a racket.
- Ya. I honestly think he's gonna walk past us.
- [Narrator] Since 1918, we've lost over
3 million square kilometers of sea ice.
Areas that polar bears depend on for their survival.
As the ice disappears, the bears are forced
to look elsewhere for food,
and that brings them much closer to humans.
- Most of the time, they are intimidated,
or they are just not interested
and they'll give you a wide berth.
And that's what I thought was going to happen
with this particular bear.
And then suddenly it switched
and as it was getting closer to us
it started yawning, and shaking its head,
and shaking its shoulders.
All of those are signs of uncertainty.
And that's when the encounter turned
from something spectacular to something really serious.
(yelling)
- Can I put the flare off.
Yeah.
- [Woman] With a big group and loud noise,
usually a couple of shots in the air,
a flare will scare a bear away,
but he definitely was interested and kept coming back.
(yelling)
- It's not puttin' him off.
(sigh)
Right now food is so so scarce.
Because the ice has broken up so quickly,
there are no seals around.
Polar bears have no option but
to come and try out everything that could be food.
- [Narrator] This is the effect that climate change
is forcing on these animals.
And confrontations, like this, are becoming more frequent.
- There are so many of us,
we were prepared,
we had guns out.
It was less of a fear that he would attack us,
but it was more of a fear that I really hope
we can scare this polar bear away with non lethal weapons.
Luckily we were able to scare him away.
- Goin' in the water?
Great!
That's what we needed.
Nobody who lives in the arctic
doubts that climate change is happening,
because you can see it,
day by day.
- [Narrator] What do we have to do before humanity wakes up?
- [Man] Sometimes it just makes me curse our species.
We could be so clever, but so unbelievably selfish.