There’s an electric fence in WWF’s Ottawa office, and a motion detector’s siren blares at the first unlucky staffer to walk through the kitchen. We’re not under siege or playing jokes on each other (well, maybe a little). This setup is being tested for a more serious purpose — keeping researchers safe in polar bear country.
Next week, A WWF-led research team, a Canon photographer, and crew will travel to Siberia’s Arctic coast on the Laptev Sea, to help solve a scientific mystery. Are the Laptev’s polar bears and walruses related to populations to the east and west? The answer to this mystery may have implications for the management of the entire region.
Arctic beaches are the most practical place for our research camp, but they’re also a polar bear pathway. Coexisting with these large predators is risky, and we’ll be sleeping in tents, not buildings.
So what’s in our safety bag?
If all goes well, we will spot and scare the bears away before they get close enough to trigger the alarm.
Download the polar bear alarm (and set it as a ringtone…?)
Although we’ll be sharing space with polar bears for just two weeks, many people in the Arctic have adapted to living with the bears year-round. Learn how communities coexist with their polar bear neighbours here.
