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Five polar bears have surrounded a team of three unarmed meteorologists and engineers at Fyodorov weather station located at Vaygach island in north Russia.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Russia, the presence of these bears is preventing the researchers from leaving the weather station building to conduct their daily work, such as measurement of water temperatures in the Arctic Sea.

The team at Fyodorov weather station consists of an engineer and two meteorologists Every day, researchers have to go several hundred meters away from outpost to measure water temperatures in the sea.

A researcher at the station told Viktor Nikiforov, the head of the WWF Polar Bear Patrol project, that hungry bears have settled in the fields outside the building and can be seen fighting with each other. They are aggressive and “recently grappled, fighting near the house.”

“They sleep near the houses. Two of them move around together.” the researcher said.

“The remaining one, he’s aggressive. (He) recently grappled with them, fighting near our house.”

“Yesterday one of the bears came near the house. Our mechanic fired a small rocket that is used by hunters to signal but the bear did not even seem scared.”

“Using flares, he was able to drive it away, but it was close.”

Arctic Sea ice is the natural habitat of polar bears. They are found throughout the circumpolar Arctic on islands, along the coasts, and on sea ice. In Russia, polar bears are found from Murmansk in the west to Chukotka in the east. The sea ice provides polar bears a platform to live, hunt, and breed. More than a platform, it serves as an entire ecosystem inhabited by microorganisms and plankton, which support a rich food chain.