{"id":14282,"date":"2011-02-10T00:23:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T00:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/kingdom-of-the-polar-bear-the-west-australian-2\/"},"modified":"2011-02-10T00:23:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T00:23:00","slug":"kingdom-of-the-polar-bear-the-west-australian-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2011\/02\/kingdom-of-the-polar-bear-the-west-australian-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingdom of the Polar Bear: The West Australian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We cautiously exit the inflatable boat.<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/l.yimg.com\/fv\/xp\/wan\/20110210\/17\/945150940.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"169\" src=\"http:\/\/l.yimg.com\/fv\/xp\/wan\/20110210\/17\/945150940.jpg\" width=\"200\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Ten at a time, we land on the pebbly beach, our guides already well ahead of us, scouting for sightings of the world&#8217;s largest terrestrial carnivore.<\/p>\n<p>The island of Spitsbergen, north of Norway, is one of just a handful of the remaining polar bear hotspots in the world.<\/p>\n<p>With a world population of this majestic mammal possibly as low as 20,000, there is a real urgency among adventure travellers to see this creature in its native habitat.<\/p>\n<p>Clutching loaded rifles, our guides are 100m ahead of us making sure we don&#8217;t surprise any unseen or sleeping beasts.<\/p>\n<p>Regulations require guides to carry loaded rifles and flare guns, but in over a decade of operation, Aurora&#8217;s expedition staff have only ever fired two warning shots; a testament to good planning, careful observation and prompt action.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/au.news.yahoo.com\/thewest\/lifestyle\/a\/-\/lifestyle\/8813280\/kingdom-of-the-polar-bear\/\">Read Full Story at The West Australian<\/a> <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We cautiously exit the inflatable boat. Ten at a time, we land on the pebbly beach, our guides already well ahead of us, scouting for sightings of the world&#8217;s largest terrestrial carnivore. The island of Spitsbergen, north of Norway, is one of just a handful of the remaining polar bear hotspots in the world. With [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[336],"class_list":["post-14282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aurora-expeditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}