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The polar bear mother and child are moving to a sandbar which holds a herd of walruses.
An English teacher from Britain once told me: "Young people in Japan say everything is cute. Dolls and kittens are cute but they even say furniture and computers are so too" But it isn't just young Japanese people. Some photographers of the same generation with me have said to me "Kingfisher's eyes are cute" or "White bears are cute". Now this bloody-faced polar bear is not cute. It is truly the largest and the strongest carnivore on land. Everyone has a different view of nature, but to me, polar bears like the one in this picture are beautiful but they are definitely not cute. They survive in this harsh Arctic world and bring life to the next generation. They are strong and noble carnivores.
A herd of walruses has begun landing on the sandbanks of Wrangel Island, a remote island in the Arctic Ocean. The herd was getting bigger, more than 20,000 in the end. Just after sunset, a polar bear rushed into a herd of walrus and killed a cub.
"Wooooow!" I shouted and rushed into the hut and shouted again, I am alive!. I was holding the flare pistol and my eyes were wide open in fear.
A newborn polar bear came out from its snow den and saw the outside world for the first time. That was a dramatic scene.
I had gone to Wrangel Island located in the far north of Russia to take photographs of the dramatic scenery. On the 21st of March, twenty five days later from when I left Japan, I found a hole on the 6th stage of Mt. Dream Head where there had been a lot of birth holes. Sixty meters from the hole I had built up blocks of snow to create a film blind 1.5m wide in front and 2m widein side.. Anatoly Kochnev, the leading polar bear researcher, had asked me: "Safety first? Or success?" As I had barely raised the money for the trip I immediately answered, "Success." He said "Then you have to be alone. They will notice if there are two people around If the mother bear comes within 30 meters you should get out of the blind and put your hands over your head to show them you are a human. If the bear comes too close you should fire a flare at its neck or shoulders and then quickly fire the second one. Load the third and then leave quickly."
On the 31st of March (11th day of waiting) at 10.25 am with the temperature of minus 30°C, there was no wind and clear skies. From the snow hole I sawa mother bear's nose. After 5-6 minutes the mother bear appeared with two cubs. As a nature photographer I had kept clicking the shutter without realising that they had came close to only about 20 meters away from me.I grabbed my flare pistol but at the same moment the snow blocks began to move violently and the giant polar bear's head appeared. I had to fire the flare gun while the bear was just 60cm away from me. For a moment the mother bear shrunk back but then shook her shoulders and approached to me again. I took out a shell from my pistol and fired again. Oh no! It didn't fire. The mother hit my right leg with her front palm. Luckily I wasn't seriously injured and I didn't get knocked down.I knew I had some extra flares near my foot but if I stopped to get them the bear would gain more confidence. I raised both of my hands high and said, "Fu-shuu". I let out a warning shout that is common amongst wild life. The frightened mother bear jumped back 3-4 meters. I couldn't move until they went back to their snow den. I left the area still holding the flare gun in my hand.
