Category: News
Polar Bears at Yorkshire Wildlife Park
Yorkshire Wildlife Park is one of the few zoos in the UK to care for polar bears. The 6 bears that they care for is one the biggest polar bear conversation projects in the world outside of Canada. Yorkshire Wildlife Park have created Project Polar in which they are trying to recreate the natural environment for the polar bears that they care for. The Yorkshire Wildlife Park says that “Remarkably, polar bears in the South Hudson Bay region (Canada) experience up to 7 months of conditions similar to those at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. This effort ensures the bears are surrounded by a familiar and comfortable setting, aligning with their natural habitats.“
Photo taken by Lydia Vadgama, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, November 24th 2024.
Arctic Ambassadors
Through Project Polar, Yorkshire Wildlife Park are official ambassadors for the Polar Bears International. Project Polar has meant that the park is now a Polar Bears International Arctic Ambassador Centre (PBI AAC), a hub for learning, research, development, and conservation. The focus of their work is to educate the public on the impact of climate change and how this affects the lives of polar bears. As ice caps melt, Polar Bears are losing their territories for hunting and are being forced to search further and further for food, so it is important that we contribute to finding ways to reduce carbon emissions within our communities.
Lydia and Ricky shared that it had been really special to see the polar bears up close in Yorkshire. One thing that surprised them is how mischievous the polar bears are and how they like to play with lots of different toys including kayaks or balls which they jump on and chew. Staff report that they are always having to find things that they can make that are durable as the polar bears have incredibly powerful jaws and are quick to break their toys! The bears also quite enjoying digging and rolling around in the mud so some were more brown than white.
Lydia managed to get several pictures of the lovely bears but one bear stood out in particular as they were teaching the public how to do polar bear yoga! There is an activity for this with young people in our outreach section of our website, which you can get to from here.
Thank you to Yorkshire Wildlife Park for the amazing day out to see the bears and for keeper talk with the bears. If you’d like to visit the park yourself, click the link to their website here.
Our Amazing Runners Made It!
Today, 06.04.25, our 5 fabulous runners completed the London Landmarks Half Marathon 2025. Matt, Sam, Amy, Dean and Karen were fantastic to watch as they raced around London and taking in all the historic sights. The Arctic Quest team had the opportunity to watch and cheer them on at the beautiful St Paul’s Cathedral, the 10.5 mile marker.
Alan Noake, MBE, made this excellent video as a highlight reel, show casing our runners.
Alongside their commitment to regular training, the team along engaged in all important fundraising. Matt, Sam, Amy, Dean and Karen were absolutely incredible in not just running for Kent Scouts Arctic Quest 2026 but also fundraising for our important polar expedition! The group succeeded in raising almost £3000, another triumph to our continued efforts of trying to reach the all important goal of £133,000.
Matt and Sam, in particular, have had the amazing opportunity to go to Antarctica through the ReQuest project in 2021, so they felt it was only right to support Arctic Quest.
If you did not get a chance to support our fundraisers before their race and you want to reward them for their efforts post marathon, then please feel free to make a donation here:
https://www.justgiving.com/page/aq26llhm
Enjoy some photos from the day!
Matt and Amy waiting to run.
Karen and Dean waiting to run.
Finale Team Photo of our amazing finishers
Runners and Arctic Quest with Alan Noake MBE
Geocaching Coin Adventures- Race Against Time
Just before Christmas 2024, one of our Team Leaders, Ricky Baker, decided to create a Geocaching Coin that would undertake its own journey from New Zealand, the birth place of Frank Worsley, to Svalbard, the destination of the 1926 British Arctic Expedition for which Worsley was a co-lead.
Purpose
This mission is a race for the Geocaching community to get the coin to Svalbard by April 2026 when Kent Scouts Arctic Quest intend to visit. From there, Ricky hopes to be reunited with the coin and return it to Worsley’s memorial site, which is in Woking, Surrey.
At present the coin has made it back to New Zealand courtesy of Natalie247 and has already been discovered by two other Geocachers in Dunedin. Natalie247 wrote on the 08/12/2024:
“Was handed this lovely TB to take back to NZ. Will take to a viewing spot where there is nothing between it and Antarctica before sending on its way back North.“
So, for anyone in NZ and an avid Geocacher, please help find our trackable and send it on its way back to Svalbard! If you’re not a Geocacher but you’re interested to follow the coins journey it can be tracked via this wesbite:
https://www.geocaching.com/track/
Tracking Code: TB9JM3V
Personal Projects Skills Day
Preparation for personal projects
The group coming together for the first time following Jambowlree in February 2024!
In order to help us in prepare for our project work in the Arctic, our Scouts and Leaders attended Wildwood Trust Kent, where we linked up with the education team. Steve Kirk, Natural Heritage Officer, took our group out for the day to teach us a variety of surveying skills of flora and fauna, as well as share his incredible knowledge about the behaviours and evolutionary adaptions of Arctic animals including Arctic Foxes and Reindeer. We then ended our morning of learning with pizza for lunch and then atalatl throwing- ancient spear throwing!
Steve was able to teach us a number of different surveying skills, why we use them, the importance of recording, best practice methods to ensure the efficacy of our studies and how to use the different tools in surveys and samples. This included quadrants for flora surveys, how to set up small mammal traps, and using identification keys to look at different insects in leaf litter. Below is a picture of Samuel using a pooter to suck the bugs into the pot for closer examination.
Samuel using a pooter to examine the bugs he and team mate Amy found in their leaf letter.
In this next picture, Steve showed us how to use a quadrant to identify how much plant life can be found growing in a particular area. Unfortunately, being autumn, this is not quite the right time of year to undertake this study as plants are starting to die off. That said, we still learned about how to ensure random sampling to prevent bias in our studies.
Quadrant in action with Steve in between fungi identification
Following our survey sessions, Steve shared with us his exceptional knowledge of reindeers and arctic foxes. The group were impressed to know that reindeer actually see in ultra violet and their heels also click as they walk, which enables them to navigate in such poor conditions such as a snow blizzard as they can hear one another.
Photo of reindeer by Lydia Vadgama, 12th October 2024
In respect of the Arctic foxes, Wildwood Kent have recently had babies, known as cubs or pups. The pups have already grown quite big having been born earlier in the year in May and they have already started growing into their winter coats. We observed the pups playing with a variety of enrichment toys, encouraging them to explore, play and practice their hunting skills. We even managed to catch some of them practicing their pouncing. In the wild, Arctic foxes will listen out for small rodents in the snow below them and then nose dive into the snow to capture their prey. Steve also shared with us that historical records indicate Arctic foxes are incredibly inquisitive and rather fearless. It is reported that they were rather comfortable to approach humans, were brazen enough to steal their food, chew their gloves and take their personal possessions! They were relentless in returning to human camps despite often being hit by humans or having things thrown at them for poaching their supplies! They totally live up to the phrase “who dares wins”. We observed some of this behaviour in their enclosure with their enrichment toys.
Photograph of Arctic Fox taken by Lydia Vadgama, 12th October 2024
Overall, this was a truly excellent day. One of our young people Sophie said the following:
I really enjoyed Wildwood with Steve as our guide – he was amazing. He knew loads about everything from mushrooms to atalatl throwing! The techniques that he showed us with collecting data on flora and fauna was really interesting and can definitely help some of us with our project ideas. I can’t wait to go back to Wildwood!
Steve teaching Sophie the best technique to throw the atalatl.
Whilst there are no plans currently to undertake a project on spear throwing, the activities of the day really got us to reflect on what we might do as projects moving forwards. Some are exploring the history of navigation and tools used 100 years ago vs today. Some are interested in animal behaviour and the impact of climate change. Others want to look at health and wellbeing whilst living on a boat. I can’t wait to see the results of what we discover and share this with everyone who supported us on this journey.
If you’re interested in accessing some of the amazing learning and training that Wildwood have to offer, get in touch with their education team at: https://kent.wildwoodtrust.org/education-kent/. They can offer bespoke learning for children and adults alike.
If you have any ideas of what we could research whilst in the Arctic, or if you have a research project and you need data collecting from somewhere in the Arctic circle, please get in touch with us as we could possibly help! You can comment below or drop us an email found on our contact us page. Let us know what you think.
Arctic Quest Annual Auction
Every December from 2023 to 2025 we are holding an auction to raise funds for the Kent Scouts ArcticQuest2026 Polar Research Project.
If you do win an item we welcome an optional additional contribution towards postage costs. This is mandatory for international bidders at a fair international postage rate for the country concerned.
We welcome donated items for the auction. Anything of value to help the team raise some funds. Contact alan.noake@kentscouts.org.uk if you have an item to donate.
Kent County Scout Council
Charity Registration Number: 303471
Louis Rudd MBE
The team are absolutely thrilled that Lou Rudd MBE has agreed to be their project patron. He is a record-breaking polar adventurer, expedition leader, former Royal Marine Commando and SAS soldier, with 34 years of service. He is the first – and only – person to have traversed Antarctica twice using human power alone, has reached the South Pole four times from different coastal start points and summited Antarctica’s highest mountain. He is a member of the exclusive Explorers Club, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an Ambassador for ABF The Soldiers’ Charity, Director of Expeditions for Shackleton, a Published Author and accomplished Public Speaker.
ArcticQuest2026
Overall Aim: Following on from the success of the REQUEST2021 Antarctica Global Project the aim is to continue in the footsteps of Scout Marr who went north in 1925/26 and completed polar research as part of Frank Worsley’s British Arctic Expedition.