Searching for a polar bear in a snowstorm is something akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.
Searching for a polar bear in a snowstorm is something akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.
It’s a mid-November day and whiteout conditions prevail on the banks of Canada’s Hudson Bay. The sea ice that has been slowly forming over the past month will soon reach the shoreline, at which point the region’s 800 or so polar bears will head out, not to return to land until next summer. Inside Tundra Buggy One, the official research vehicle of Polar Bears International, we’re searching for bears — camouflaged ice-pilgrims that may have taken refuge among the low-lying willows.
The buggy, which resembles a large armored Land Cruiser some six feet off the ground with gigantic tires, feels more like a boat than a truck as it lurches and pitches over rocks into deep craters. Unlike the bear-viewing tourist buggies, this one comes equipped with four cameras, bunk beds, and a working fireplace, allowing researchers to spend the night on the desolate tundra in peak polar bear season. In the back, scientist Geoff York observes a large monitor that displays a satellite map of the area. He’s testing a radar system that researchers with Polar Bears International and York University are using to detect polar bears on the landscape. They’ve dubbed it “BEARDAR.”
“It came from the military,” explains York, senior director of conservation at Polar Bears International. The idea is to teach the radar how to recognize polar bears and differentiate them from Arctic foxes, wolves, caribou, moose, and other moving forms at a range of up to 400 meters.
Read more at Yale Environment 360
Photo credit: robynm via Pixabay
