Freeze-up on Hudson Bay came later than in recent decades, but most of Churchill, Manitoba's polar bears have managed to get out onto the sea ice to hunt for seals again, says Polar Bears International.....The question is with the ice not as advanced throughout the Arctic,,,,,can the Bears find enough Seals to sustain them for the long haul????????????

Most of Churchill's polar bears now on sea ice

WINNIPEG — Freeze-up on Hudson Bay came later than in recent decades, but most of Churchill, Man.'s polar bears have managed to get out onto the sea ice to hunt for

 seals again says Polar Bears International.

For the past two years, Churchill's polar bear population was forced to wait until the first and second weeks of December to get on the ice and return to hunting seals, according to the non-profit advocacy and research group.

Some polar bears collared with satellite tracking devices by the organization are having a hard time, though."Many of the females are still stranded on land and those that made it out on the ice didn't get very far," said Prof. Andrew Derocher, a biologist with the University of Alberta and adviser to the organization, in a news release.

"A strong wind from the south this week didn't help: it pushed away the near-shore ice, retarding the iceward movements of the bears and forcing many back to land. And so they wait."
Hudson Bay and the surrounding area are missing a huge amount of ice this winter, he said. "We suspect the bears really want to be much farther out in the bay because they usually follow the advancing ice edge — probably to catch some of last spring's naive seal pups," he said.

Even the bears that headed north aren't doing that well, the news release said. On Tuesday, a bear was shot during an encounter with sled dogs in Arviat, Nunavut. "One has to wonder if some of the Churchill bears that have been feeding along with the dogs east of town don't learn to seek out dogs," Derocher said.