Polar bears may be on thin ice

MOSCOW - A boatload of tourists in the Far Eastern Russian Arctic thought they were seeing clumps of ice on the shore, before the jaw-dropping realization that some 200 polar bears were roaming on the mountain slope.

"It was a completely unique situation," said Alexander Gruzdev, director of the Wrangel Island nature reserve where the encounter in September happened. "We were all gobsmacked, to be honest."

The bears had come to feast on the carcass of a bowhead whale that washed ashore. The crowd included many families, including two mothers trailed by a rare four cubs each, Gruzdev said.