Churchill Polar Bears 0

Churchill 2021 Polar Bear Season Highlights Part 1- Sparring

By · On December 24, 2021


Two huge males spar on the tundra outside Churchill, Manitoba.

It was an amazing season guiding 4 expeditions for Natural Habitat Adventures this past fall. Unlike several autumns of the past 10 years, ice conditions stayed light until after the season had ended, awarding all trips from Oct 10-Nov 18 to be extremely productive. Here are some of my highlight images from an amazing season.

Sparring, or play fighting is an extraodinary behavior that the Hudson Bay polar bears are famous for. It is thought that practice fighting prepares these big boys for real mating season fights out on the ice in the late winter and early spring.

The objective of this fighting behavior is for one of the males to overpower his opponent, and throw him onto his back. In real fighting situations this normally decides the winner.

“Dancing bears”

In my option, the number of scars, dark black, hairless marks, indicates a male’s age and number of mating seasons he has weathered. This looks like a younger male in his prime, showing only a few scars.

Witnessing and photographing sparring is one of the great experiences possible for lucky travelers visiting Churchill during Polar bear season. Check out my previous post featuring an edited video of sparring polar male polar bears! Ill be posting some more highlights of the 2021 polar bear season in the next few days, so stay tuned!!!


Brad has been a Natural Habitat Expedition Leader since 2005, guiding Alaska grizzly bear tours, Churchill polar bear tours, northern lights expeditions and China panda tours. His specialty is bear biology and ecology of the north country.

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