Overview
- Photographer Vadim Makhorov filmed roughly 20 polar bears using buildings on Kolyuchin Island in mid-September, with the images published on Oct. 15–16.
- The former Soviet weather and research station about 11 kilometers off Russia’s Chukotka coast has been unused since the 1990s, allowing wildlife to enter.
- Video shows bears resting on porches and looking out windows, and at least one animal trying to catch the drone.
- Scientists from Polar Bear International told CBS News that warming temperatures and melting sea ice are altering bear foraging and drawing them closer to human structures.
- Past incidents underscore risks at remote Arctic sites, including a 2016 siege of a Russian station and a 2024 fatality at a Canadian radar outpost.