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At the end of the Canadian Arctic summer, polar bears head inland to wait for the ice to form. <\/p>\n
And while thousands of tourists flock to catch a glimpse of these magnificent predators, researchers are developing novel ways to keep people and bears safely separated. <\/p>\n
New tracking devices that stick in polar bears\u2019 fur could be the key to protecting both people and bears – by closely monitoring the animals’ locations.<\/p>\n
Polar bears now spend more of the year on land, as Arctic sea ice melts, so conservationists are increasingly concerned about bears and people coming into contact.<\/p>\n
The tracking tags, which have been tested on bears in Canadian Arctic, could help prevent those encounters, by \u201ckeeping a remote eye\u201d on the bears.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Tyler Ross<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe fur tags relay a bear\u2019s position and allow scientists to study behaviour<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n\n
Lead researcher Tyler Ross, a PhD candidate from York University in Toronto, said the fur tags were \u201cparticularly promising\u201d for the prevention of these \u201chuman-bear interactions\u201d.<\/p>\n
In communities in the southern Canadian Arctic, where the scientists tested these tags, polar bears that wander too close to a community are sometimes caught, transported and released in carefully selected sites away from towns and villages. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese tags could be fitted to those bears to monitor where they are after they’ve been released,\u201d explained Mr Ross.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they’re coming back towards the community, conservation staff would have a sense of where they are, and they could head them off. I think that’s where they offer considerable promise.”<\/p>\n
The researcher, who studies polar bear ecology, also says the tags could fill important gaps in knowledge about the bears. And as the Arctic climate warms up rapidly, the need to monitor bears becomes increasingly urgent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Tyler Ross<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe new tracker tags attach to the bears’ fur and, while the animals are sedated to fit the tags, the devices fall off naturally<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n\n
\u201cThere’s a dearth of information about male polar bear movements, because they can’t be equipped with conventional tracking collars,\u201d said Mr Ross.<\/p>\n
The sea ice [that the polar bears use as a platform from which to hunt] is disappearing faster than it has in the past,\u201d explained Mr Ross. \u201cSo the winter hunting season is getting shorter. We want to know where they’re moving in response.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polar bears are difficult to tag. Male bears\u2019 heads are smaller than their necks, so tracking collars can just slip off.<\/p>\n
Another option is ear tags – attached by piercing the bear\u2019s ear. They require an animal to be recaptured in order to remove the tag and, in rare cases, can injure the ear.<\/p>\n
The three new tags the researchers tested were designed by the company 3M in collaboration with the charity Polar Bears International. They all attach to the bears\u2019 coarse fur.<\/p>\n
To fit the tags, scientists had to locate and sedate bears. They then assessed the quality of the data they received from each device and noted when the tags fell off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Tyler Ross <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe best performing tag remained attached to the bear for an average of 58 days<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n\n
The best performing device was called a SeaTrkr tag, which is \u201ccrimped\u201d into the bears\u2019 fur. <\/b>It stayed attached for an average of 58 days and – with an in-built GPS system – allowed the scientists to pinpoint the bears\u2019 location to within just a few metres.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s ideal to have something that falls off naturally – that\u2019s not permanently attached to the bear,\u201d explained Mr Ross. \u201cBut anything that lasts in the order of a few months would be great [for our research], because then you\u2019re getting these important seasons that the bears are going through throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Climate change is bringing bears and humans into closer proximity, making places where polar bears and people coexist, riskier for both.<\/p>\n
One US Geological Survey study in 2022 that that used data from satellite tracking collars on more than 400 polar bears in Alaska, shows the time they spend onshore has grown significantly in recent decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting a better sense of polar bears\u2019 movements is really crucial,\u201d Mr Ross commented. \u201cParticularly given the state of their environment at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
This study of the bear tags is published in the journal Animal Biotelemetry. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
BJ Kirschhoffer\/PBI<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n