June 16th, 2009 | By Nora Sawyer | Filed in Arctic Animals, Community News, Conservation, Global Warming, INUIT, SCIENCE

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be looking at polar bears in honor of this summer’s bear-centered expedition to Coats Island.

Today, I read an interesting article from the Toronto star about new techniques being used to track the affects of hunting and global climate change on Canada’s polar bear population. In the past, scientists have relied on population surveys that involve tracking bears by air and tranquilizing them. Because of the expense inherent in these sorts of studies — more than $2 million per region, over Canada’s thirteen regions — such surveys can only be conducted every thirteen years or so.

But for researchers tracking the affects of climate change on bear populations and wildlife managers determining hunting limits, this is simply not often enough. The Arctic changing, and these changes can have a dramatic impact on polar bears. It’s vital, therefore,  that population data about the bears be up to date.

More recently, researchers at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario have been employing a method developed by a company called Wildtrack:

Wildtrack uses the photographs taken in the field to measure the distances and angles between the bear’s five toes and its toe and heel footpads. In a clear print, that reveals sex and age – data crucial to determining population trends – and can even identify individuals.

“They are probably as individual as fingerprints,” said Suzanne Sprajcar of SAS, the company that developed the software for the program.

Footprint surveys, however, require only a camera and an Inuit bear tracker. The cost is about one-quarter of a full “mark-and-capture” survey.

Because they cost so much less and take advantage of local resources, these surveys can be done almost yearly, providing a much more nuanced picture of the polar bear population

That’s the strength of the Inuit,” said De Groot, who works in the M’Clintock Channel region near the Nunavut community of Gjoa Haven. “You give them a hunting knife and a can of gas and in two weeks they’ll come back with whatever you want.”

Read the entire article online here: The Toronto Star: How do you ‘fingerprint’ a polar bear?.

Tags: arctic, canadian arctic, Conservation, Diving, polar bears, SCIENCE