The old aerial polar bear hunt in Alaska

From the late 1940s until the early 1970s hunting guides in Alaska took their clients in airplanes out over the Chukchi and Beaufort Sea sea ice.  When the guides found a bear on the ice, they would try to land and give their clients a chance to hunt.  At times the planes were used to herd the bears towards the waiting hunters. 

The hunt and some of its economics were described by U.S. delegations to early (1965-1974) international meetings on the status of the polar bear.  I think that much of the following material was prepared by Jack Lentfer, a government bear biologist who attended these meetings. 

Here is a map for orientation.  The hunts originated in six or seven small communities in Northwest Alaska.  Little Diomede Island, which you will read about, is right in the Bering Strait.

The aerial sport harvest began sometime in the late 1940s.  In the years before that most hunting had been by Alaska Natives for subsistence and income (Polar Bear Management in Alaska; Jack Lentfer, Third International Conference on Bears, 1974):