Smarter Than the Average Bear Tracker

Because polar bears are an imperiled species, gathering as much information as possible about their status is more important than ever. Unfortunately, the most commonly practiced method of gathering data — aerial monitoring and tranquilizing to permit tissue sampling — is both expensive and invasive.

And with the seasonal patterns of arctic ice cover now demonstrating disturbingly high variability and unpredictability, these excursions are not just costly, they've become a bit of a crapshoot.

But a triple-win is at hand.

Queen's University researchers are implementing a markedly different and unquestionably improved approach: It's less costly, it yields more and more meaningful data and it incorporates the deep ecosystemic wisdom of local indigenous people who have survived in harsh the arctic climate for centuries.

Ingenious meat-baited "hair traps" — harmless barbs that gather hair samples from which DNA and genetic marker data can be extracted — are placed at regular distances across broad expanses. No tranquilizer darts are required.

Additional biochemical information, primarily bacteriological, viral, and dietary in nature, are gathered from the bears' droppings and paint a portrait of quality of health.

Lastly, the revised approach incorporates a remarkable bit of traditional wisdom: The Inuit knowledge base of their environment includes the remarkable ability to discern age, weight and even the sex of a bear from reading its tracks. The active participation of the Inuit community has been enlisted in the effort and is deemed invaluable at providing very fine point understanding of the spatial variability among the polar bear population.

This multi-faceted program provides a richer data set with better-defined geographic referencing of patterns of movement, mating, diet and age distribution across the broader polar bear population.

Given the challenges the polar bear faces, now is such a perfect time for the arrival a smarter, better, cheaper and more inclusive approach to collecting information about them from which effective conservation initiatives may then be launched.