Explorer: Polar bears will 'actively hunt man'
The polar bear is the only land mammal that will actively hunt man.
I know that because I've been followed by one on a solo expedition I was doing in Canada for a week and a half.
They actively follow you and will hunt you. They're the only mammal that will do that.
You've got to watch out. You've got to have a range of devices to put them off.
You've got to know, first and foremost, how to react to their behaviour or what behaviour you're looking at.
Are they being curious? Are they being predatory? Are they being a little bit too curious?
You've got to react accordingly.
It's very much a dynamic situation, but the one that was snorting just six inches away from my head,
I was very quiet to begin with, made an inanimate tapping sound on my stove.
That sort of shocked it and sent it back a little way.
By that time, I didn't poke my head out, but I could open the tent up and view to see where it was.
It had backed off to maybe five metres.
Then you increase that sound just a little bit to put it off just a little further.
It's a way of working up, just planting the seed of doubt in their mind that you're their next bit of supper.
One of the things people use sometimes is a tripwire.
On one occasion in 1987, I had an expedition in Svalbard, just east of the area that this unfortunately happened.
We had a tent set up with one of these tripwires around.
As soon as the bear hits the tripwire, it explodes a device that scares the bear off, or at least alerts you to what goes on.
In 1987, this device didn't work. The bear just went straight through it.
We were only alerted when the bear put his paw through our large tent.
These devices, they're not fail-safe.
In popular polar bear country, you should have what we call a polar bear watch so that someone is awake at any time to alert people and to react accordingly to a polar bear that's seen.