The life of one of the most remote grizzly-bear populations in the world is being documented by the animals themselves, with collar cameras that provide a rare glimpse at how they survive in Alaska's rugged and desolate North Slope. Twelve of the 200 or so grizzlies that roam the frigid, treeless terrain near the Arctic Ocean have been outfitted with the cameras as part of a research project by Washington State University and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, per the AP. The videos they record—many partially obscured by the undersides of whiskery muzzles—show the bears playing or fighting with companions, gnawing on caribou, scooping up berries, napping on a beach, and swimming in a pond looking for fish.
"We're interested in looking at kind of a broad scale of how they're obtaining the food that allows them to survive through the year and what exactly they're choosing to eat," says Washington State doctoral student Ellery Vincent, who's leading the project with state wildlife biologist Jordan Pruszenski. Among other things, the state is interested in learning to what extent the bears hunt musk oxen. There are about 300 of the shaggy ice-age survivors on the North Slope, according to Pruszenski, but the population isn't flourishing.
To initially fit the bears with the collar cams, the researchers tracked them through the snow by helicopter last May. Pruszenski fired tranquilizer darts from the air, with Vincent keeping track of injection times and helping determine when the bear was safe to approach on the ground. They placed the collars on the bears, keeping them loose enough so the bears can grow into them as they get bigger, but not so loose they'll fall off during the bears' usual activity. The researchers darted the bears again in August to replace the collars and in September to download data. The researchers also measured the bears' weight gain and body fat.
The cameras can record up to 17 hours of video. In the spring and summer, they took a short video clip—four to six seconds—every 10 minutes. In the fall, due to the encroaching darkness, they recorded clips every five minutes during daylight. Despite their brevity, the clips provide a rare perspective of how the bears thrive on the desolate North Slope, an area that covers about 94,000 square miles but is home to only about 11,000 people. The study will continue for another two years, with plans to add collars to 24 more bears. More here.
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