About half of the 60 polar bears that invaded a Russian town last week, in the midst of a particularly warm winter, have left the town after slowly forming areas of ice, which bears need to catch marine animals, state media reported yesterday.
"The ice is starting to form, but the temperature is fluctuating around the freezing point," environment activist Tatyana Menenko said in comments reported by the Russian news agency "Novosti".
Menenko, from the World Wildlife Fund, is leading volunteers seeking to prevent a confrontation between bears and local residents in the town of Rirkaybe, in northeastern Russia.
The World Wildlife Fund in Russia said in a statement last week that the bears seemed thin and hungry last week, as they wandered near the town in search of food, amid "unusually warm weather for the beginning of December."