The Arctic military town of Belushya Guba in Russia has had to welcome some new residents.

The small town has been overrun by polar bears, causing residents to only travel by car, while others patrol the streets with stun guns until “bear experts” arrive.

In classic Russian style, the locals have decided to continue as normal, despite the bears. Nadezhda Kireyeva, a postal worker, told The Telegraph that even though coming face-to-face with a polar bear incites a mix of “adrenaline, terror and the question of what to do”, it’s still business as usual.

Times are tough, man:

Despite the short distances, everyone now travels by car. Groups of people patrol constantly, firing shots in the air or setting off stun grenades to frighten off the bears.

But Ms Kireyeva and others warned that the predators were becoming inured to attempts to scare them as they searched for food, attracted by the town’s rubbish.

“Night and day they walk the streets in gangs of three to six, testing how solid doors and windows are,” one resident told the news site Fontanka. “They’re not aggressive, more just impudent and fearless.”

At least 52 bears have been spotted since December. The authorities blamed the “mass invasion” of polar bears on climate change, which has melted the sea ice where they can hunt seals.

The western shore of Novaya Zemlya is now ice-free year-round. Stuck on land, bears often seek sustenance among human refuse, like those who besieged the coastal town of Dikson last autumn.

Meanwhile, more and more people are arriving to man the energy projects and military bases Russia has been establishing in the warming Arctic, raising the risk of conflict. A polar bear killed an oil and gas worker in Franz Josef Land in 2016.

The following video is from 2016 and shows someone feeding one of the bears, which goes some way towards explaining why they think being around humans is a good idea:

You shouldn’t feed polar bears, but that is undeniably adorable.

The town’s inhabitants initially wanted to shoot the protected bears, which seems a tad unreasonable seeing as though humans are the reason that their home is melting.

Russia’s environmental oversight agency instead sent a crisis response group of experts to count the bears and find a solution, perhaps even tranquillising and moving them away from town. A blizzard with winds of 20 metres a second on the island has delayed the group’s arrival until at least Wednesday.

Mikhail Stishov, a polar bear expert with the World Wildlife Fund, blames the town’s failure to adequately dispose of their refuse, which has now attracted the bears.

Polar bears won’t attack humans unless startled, provoked or hungry. Environmentalists have warned that encounters with other animals, like tigers, could increase as climate change worsens.

And yes, climate change is real. Ask the bears.

[source:telegraph]