Small Alaskan town receives touristslooking for polar bear sightings

A polar bear in the Beaufort Sea near Kaktovik, Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by: P. de Graaf/Getty Images

JUNEAU, Alaska — A tiny Alaska village has experienced a boom in tourism in recent years.

Polar bears there are spending more time on land than on the diminishing Arctic Ocean's ice.

More than 2,000 people visited the northern Alaska village of Kaktovik last year, Alaska's Energy

Desk reported September 6. They wanted to see polar bears in the wild.

Kaktovik is a coastal village on the Beaufort Sea. The Beaufort Sea is north of Alaska and part of

the Arctic Ocean. The far north community is located on the north shore of Barter Island in an

area where rapid global warming has sped up the movement of sea ice, the primary habitat of

polar bears.

By Associated Press, adapted by Newsela staff on 09.12.18

Word Count 444

Level 1140L

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Tourists Flocking To Town

The village had less than 50 visitors annually before 2011, said Jennifer Reed, of the Arctic

National Wildlife Refuge.

"Today we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of visitors, many from around the world each

year," Reed said.

Polar bears have always been a common sight on sea ice near Kaktovik, but residents started

noticing a change in the mid-1990s. More bears seemed to stay on land, and researchers began

taking note of more female bears making dens in the snow on land instead of on the ice.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists began hearing reports of increasing numbers of polar

bears in the area in the early 2000s, Reed said. As more attention was given to the plight of polar

bears about a decade ago, more tourists stated heading to Kaktovik.

Bears Appearing More Often On Land

Most tourists visit in the fall when bears are forced toward land because sea ice is the farthest

away from the shore. Some bears become stranded on land near Kaktovik until the sea freezes

again in October or November.

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The fall is also when residents of Kaktovik kill three bowhead whales. Bruce Inglangasak is an

Inupiaq Eskimo. He hunts whales and offers wildlife viewing tours. He said residents were unsure

how tourists would react to whaling. The people of Kaktovik kill only three whales because that

provides enough meat to feed them.

"The community was scared about, you know, activists that was going to try to get us to shut

down the whaling — subsistence whaling," Inglangasak said. "But that's not true."

Inglangasak said he's been offering polar bear tours since 2003 or 2004.

Most of his clients are from China and Europe, as well as other U.S. states. They arrive in

Katkovik on small planes from the bigger Alaskan cities Anchorage and Fairbanks.

Many tourists stay several days in the village, which has two small hotels, Inglangasak said.

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Quiz

1 Which of these statements would be MOST important to include in an objective summary of the

article?

(A) A small town in Alaska has seen an increase in tourism over the last few decades

because polar bears are being forced to stay on land for longer.

(B) A small town in Alaska had fewer than 50 visitors per year, and now they have

thousands of people visiting from countries all around the world.

(C) A small town in Alaska is benefiting economically from the dramatic increase in

both the polar bear population and international tourism.

(D) A small town in Alaska is faced with the growing threat of polar bears that have

taken over the village for several months out of the year.

2 What is the relationship between the following selections from the article?

1. Polar bears there are spending more time on land than on thediminishing Arctic Ocean's ice.

2. The far north community is located on the north shore of BarterIsland in an area where rapid global warming has sped up themovement of sea ice, the primary habitat of polar bears.

(A) The first sentence describes a problem and the second sentence describes its

solution.

(B) The first sentence describes a solution and the second sentence describes the

problem.

(C) The first sentence describes a cause and the second sentence describes its

effect.

(D) The first sentence describes an effect and the second sentence describes its

cause.

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3 Which of the following groups quoted in the article would be MOST LIKELY to agree with idea that the

increase in polar bears tourism risked causing a controversy over whaling traditions in Kaktovik?

(A) Alaska's Energy Desk

(B) the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

(C) the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

(D) the Inupiaq Eskimo community

4 Which answer choice would BEST describe the researchers' reaction to polar bears building dens on

land in the 1990s?

(A) They expected the increase in polar bear dens on land as a result of global

warming.

(B) They marked the increase in polar bear dens on land as a highly unusual event in

the area.

(C) They feared that the increase in polar bear dens would result in problems for the

small town.

(D) They predicted that the increase in polar bear dens on land would lead to

increased tourism.

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 5