Polar bear tracking tech breakthrough could boost conservation as climate heats up

20.07.2024 - 10:18 / euronews.com / Rosie Frost

Scientists have developed a new way of tracking polar bears and it could help us better understand how they cope with disappearing sea ice.

This breakthrough in stick-on GPS tracking tags will help researchers fill gaps in their knowledge about the behaviour or movement of polar bears like never before.

It comes as research highlights the danger these animals face from climate change. Two important groups of polar bears in Hudson Bay, Canada, face becoming locally extinct if global temperatures continue to increase, according to a report released last month.

“It's incumbent upon us to understand the impending impact [of human-induced climate change] on our natural world, so that we can make policy decisions informed by science,” lead author Professor Julienne Stroeve, University of Manitoba, said at the time.

As climate change threatens polar bears’ survival, the new tracking tech could open doors to previously hard-to-collect data that is essential for their conservation.

Efforts to develop less invasive ways to track polar bears have been in development for years with varying levels of success.

For a long time, satellite collars have been the primary method used by researchers to study their behaviour and adaptation to the consequences of climate change.

“Most of what we know about polar bear habitat - which type of habitat they prefer, such as sea ice versus land - and behaviour is based on adult female bears because the collars used to track their movements cannot be safely used on subadults or adult males,” explains Tyler Ross, lead author of a brand new study into tracking tech and researcher at York University.

Collars fall off of adult males because of their cone-shaped heads and necks. Young bears grow too rapidly for collars to be used safely.

This means little is known about subadult and adult male bears, particularly during the time they spend on sea ice when it isn’t practical to directly observe them. What limited evidence researchers do have suggests that their behaviour is different from that of adult females.

“These tags will help further our understanding of these differences, resulting in a more holistic picture of polar bear ecology and how the species is responding to their changing environment.”

It gives scientists a new tool for critical research into this vulnerable species - and for managing potentially deadly interactions with humans.

Trackers allow scientists to follow these animals even when they are far out on the sea ice or wandering in the 24-hour darkness of the Arctic winter. As technology has improved, basic GPS tags have become much smaller creating new possibilities for research.

Currently, ear tags have to be permanently attached, and implants require minor surgery