This is the moment a hungry polar bear ignores barking dogs and casually wanders into a remote Arctic village to raid outdoor cool boxes where locals’ store meat for the second day in a row.
The footage shows the animal wandering through the village to raid the outdoor storage boxes containing meat from marine animals that hunters use like freezers on the frozen ground outside their homes in the village of Uelen in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in Russia on 11th March.
Local residents said the predator had entered the settlement for two days in a row after being attracted by the smell of the stored meat.
The bear was first spotted during the night of 10th March when it approached the eastern part of the village from the direction of the sea.
Village resident Andrey Etekmen said: “He visited Alexey Pelyanto, who a year ago had already reinforced the box with walrus meat with nails.”
“But that was not enough – the bear opened the storage and dragged away a piece.”
He added: “Sergey Komissarov tried to scare the beast away with firecrackers, but the bear disappeared into the darkness with its haul.”
Witnesses said the polar predator did not show aggression towards people or dogs and was mainly interested in stocks of marine animal meat and kymgyt, a roll made from walrus meat wrapped in walrus skin.
Village head Valentina Kareva said: “It behaves calmly and does not cause trouble.
“It simply knows there is a meat storage place and goes there.
“The patrol chases it away but it does not go far.
“It sits near the village and waits for darkness and when there are no people, it goes for the meat again.”
Officials said polar bears are currently in their migration season, when they can leave the sea ice and come ashore.
Residents have been warned about the visits and many villagers now move around with pyrotechnics while also watching the behaviour of dogs that bark when bears appear.
Authorities say up to 200 encounters between people and polar bears occur each year in Chukotka, with conflicts often prevented by a volunteer “Bear Patrol” movement that has more than 80 participants across settlements in the region.
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