Polar Bears

Churchill is known as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World". Though the timing is not right for a sighting during my stay here at the Northern Studies Center, I have met some interesting researchers who see polar bears everyday. This is the time of year when moms emerge from their dens with new cubs. These guys fly out in a helicopter each day (weather permitting) to seek out mother bears with their cubs.
They spot them from the air and move in close enough to dart the mother bear. They use a special drug to paralyze the bear just long enough to gather the information they need. Each bear is given a tatoo inside its lip with a number so that they can document which bears have been counted and examined. The cubs get an ear tag with a corresponding number. Some bears are fitted with a GPS collar for tracking purposes. Depending on what type of information the researchers need, they can take a blood or hair sample from the bears. They can even determine how old a polar bear is by pulling and examining one of its teeth.

Every attempt I've made to beg or sneak onto that helicopter has failed. However, I have learned a lot from these guys, and they generously shared this amazing picture they took out in the field yesterday! Don't you want their job? I sure do!Student Challenge:

The man in the picture above is Seth, a PhD student from the University of Alberta. He studies polar bears and tracks certain ones that he has placed GPS collars on. The GPS collars send the bears' locations to a satellite every 4 hours. The signal and information is then received by the satellite company and sent to Seth by email. Three specific bears that he tracks from the Churchill area can be seen on this Polar Bear Tracking Map. Look at the biographies and tracks of Aurora, Solstice, and Hope. Click Here to learn more about polar bears and what you can do to help preserve their arctic climate.

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