Three hundred miles (480km) north of the Arctic Circle, Sam Leavitt drives his big truck along a snow-covered beach on the coast of Alaska, next to the Beaufort Sea.

It is nearly 10 degrees below zero. The waves freeze into shards of ice as they hit the shore, but the truck’s window is down and Sam’s huge hands are bare. He wears only a cotton hooded top and jeans.

Sam, an Inupiat Eskimo, was born and raised in Barrow, Alaska’s most northern town. He recounts the changes local people have seen in the polar bear population.

“Six polar bears recently drowned out in the open water. Their bodies were spotted by sailors.”

The cause, according to Sam, would have been exhaustion.

“He’s trying to swim, he can swim over 100 miles, but it’s like 200 miles out, and that’s too far, even for a polar bear.”

In autumn, female polar bears head from the ice to the land, to build dens in snowdrifts and give birth.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7656871.stm