The WWF-Canada Polar Bear Tracker is a project created by
the Canadian World Wildlife Fund that tracks polar bears through the Arctic.
Radio collars are placed on the bears’ necks, and their positions are recorded
and sent via satellites to researchers, who then plot the movement of the bears
on Google Maps.
The Polar Bear Tracker is an important geospatial
application for a number of reasons. Firstly, the tracker provides information
on how the polar bears are adapting to the changes in sea ice volume. Polar
bears are considered indicators of an ecosystem’s health because they are at
the apex of the arctic food chain. Thus, a polar bear at risk is an indication
that there is something wrong elsewhere in the ecosystem (“Polar Bear
Tracker”). Secondly, the tracker provides scientists with information that can
be used to improve conservation and management efforts, and also allows them to
further understand the global impacts of phenomena such as climate change and
habitat loss (“Polar Bear Tracker project areas”). There are several
application projects associated with the data provided by the Polar Bear
Tracker. For example, using the collected data, the World Wildlife Fund is
gaining an understanding of where the polar bears travel, monitoring the health
of the bears, and determining their average lifespan (“Tracking Polar Bears”).
Organizations outside of the World Wildlife Fund are also using polar bear
tracking in predictive science and strategy development regarding arctic
wildlife. The Alaska Science Center is using the information concerning the
adaptation of polar bears to changes in ice quality and quantity to predict how
future polar bear generations will be affected by ice changes. These
predictions will allow for the development of strategies to ensure the
long-term survival of polar bears in an environment that is vulnerable to
changes in sea ice (“Polar Bear-Sea Ice Relationships”).
Erik Paige
Lauren Knowles
Brett Mullen
Dallas Cotterell
Karli Allen
