What's happening?

The town of Churchill in Canada is known as "the polar bear capital of the world". Hundreds of polar bears travel through the town every autumn on their way to the sea ice.

Many people come to watch. And the bears are spending more time on land as climate changeLong-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Human action is a major cause of climate change. means there is less sea ice.

This has caused a problem. Churchill now has a polar-bear jail for bears that cannot be scared away and are putting humans at riskThe chance or possibility of something bad happening. .

Last August, bears walked around another Canadian town, Yellowknife, after the people left their homes due to wildfires.

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In 2019, more than 50 bears visited a village in northern Russia. In 2022, ConnecticutA state in the northeastern USA. recorded 67 cases of bears breaking into homes.

ExpertsSomeone who knows a lot about a particular subject. say that we should not be surprised. Bears are thought to be among the cleverest animals: as clever as apes and monkeys and cleverer than dogs.

They have the largest brains, compared to their size, of any land mammalA warm-blooded animal where mothers feed young using their own bodies. . They are very clever at hiding from hunters and can open lots of "bear-proof" boxes.

Yes! Bears can remember where they got their food from for as long as 10 years. They can also find their way around without maps and phones.

No! Experts say they are about as clever as a three-year-old human child. People have clearly achieved much more than bears.