Distancing polar bears and humans is the goal of new technology.
Polar bears retreat inland as the Canadian Arctic summer ends to wait for ice.
Scientists are finding ways to keep humans and bears apart despite thousands of visitors.
New tracking gadgets that embed in polar bear fur may save both species by constantly monitoring their locations.
Polar bears spend more time on land as the Arctic sea ice melts, worrying conservationists about human-bear encounters.
By “keeping a remote eye” on Canadian Arctic bears, tracking tags may prevent such accidents.
Scientists utilizing these tags observed that Canadian communities sometimes capture polar bears that approach humans, transport them, and release them.
Mr. Ross said that the bears may be tracked after their release by fitting them with tags.
The conservation workers would know exactly where they are and could stop them if they were to return to the neighborhood. I believe they have a lot of potential in that area.
Polar bear ecology expert says tags may help fill in key gaps in our understanding of the creatures.. As the Arctic warms rapidly, bear monitoring becomes more important.
Mr. Ross pointed out that male polar bears cannot be fitted with traditional monitoring collars, which is why there is a lack of data regarding their whereabouts.
According to Mr. Ross, the polar bears’ preferred hunting platform, the sea ice, is melting at a faster rate than in previous years. Consequently, there will be less time to go hunting in the winter. We are interested in their next steps in this regard.
It is not easy to tag a polar bear. Tracking collars can easily fall off male bears because their heads are smaller than their necks.
Another choice is to pierce the bear’s ear and install ear tags. Recapturing the animal is necessary to remove the tag, and in extremely rare instances, it can cause ear injuries.
3M and the nonprofit Polar Bears International collaborated on the creation of the three novel tags that the researchers evaluated. All of them cling to the rough fur of the bears.
Researchers had to track down and sedate bears so the tags could fit. After that, they tracked when the tags came off each gadget and evaluated the data quality.
A SeaTrkr tag, which is “crimped” into the fur of the bears, was shown to be the most effective gadget. On average, it remained connected for 58 days, and because to its built-in GPS system, researchers were able to locate the bears to within a few meters.
With nothing firmly attached to the bear, “it’s ideal to have something that falls off naturally,” Mr. Ross explained. For our research, it would be ideal if the samples were taken at regular intervals, perhaps a few months, so that we could track the bears’ seasonal movements.
Polar bears and humans are becoming more closely spaced as a result of climate change, which poses risks to both species in areas where they coexist.
The amount of time polar bears spend on land has increased dramatically over the past few decades, according to a 2022 study by the US Geological Survey that analyzed data from satellite monitoring collars worn by almost 400 of these animals in Alaska.
It is absolutely vital to get a better picture of the movements of polar bears,” Mr. Ross stated. “Especially considering the current condition of their surroundings.”
Animal Biotelemetry published this study on the bear tags.
