Tag Archives: tracking

Polar bear habitat update for end July 2021 compared to previous years

Posted on July 29, 2021 | Comments Off

Here’s a trip down memory lane for Arctic sea ice at the end of July, which as far as I can see provides no evidence that a very low sea ice disaster is in the cards for polar bears this year.

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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Arctic, breakup, catastrophe, Hudson Bay, ice-free, polar bear, sea ice, tracking

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea May and June updates

Posted on July 25, 2018 | Comments Off

At the end of June, there were nine bears remaining from the original 14 that were tagged with glue-on ear transmittors in April 2018 near Kaktovik, Alaska by US Geological Survey biologists.

putting_collar_on_polar_bear_slider_USGS

Below is the June 2018 tracking map (high resolution image is here):

Beaufort tracking USGS bear-movements-June 2018 sm

Original caption: “Movements of 9 satellite-tagged polar bears for the month of June, 2018. These bears received satellite eartag transmitters in 2018 on the spring-time sea ice of the southern Beaufort Sea. Polar bear satellite telemetry data are shown with AMSR2 remotely-sensed ice coverage for 30 June, 2018.”

See the close-up for June 2018 below:

Beaufort tracking USGS bear-movements-June 2018 closeup

As ear tags are notoriously short-lived, there may not be any remaining by the end of July but if there are, I will post the tracks. The map for May 2018 is below.
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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Beaufort Sea, Kaktovik, polar bears, satellite tags, sea ice, tracking, USGS

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea resumes after a one year hiatus

Posted on May 20, 2018 | Comments Off

Fourteen bears tagged by the US Geological Survey (USGS) on or near the central Southern Beaufort Sea coast in April 2018 (near Kaktovik) will be tracked online over the coming months.

The break in published USGS tagging data from March 2017 to April 2018 was the first since the project began in December 2009 but no explanation for the hiatus has been provided. It is therefore unclear whether no tagging occurred in spring 2017 or data was simply not published online. The last bears followed were tagged in March 2016.

Tranquilized_pb570_S Beaufort March 2014_USGS

In contrast to previous years, this spring all fourteen of the bears have glue-on ear transmitters, which means they are either adult males or juvenile bears rather than females (which are fitted with satellite collars):

“In collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service we are also experimenting with glue-on and ear tag satellite transmitters, which can be deployed on adult male bears and younger, still-growing bears.”

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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Alaska, Barrow, Beaufort Sea, Canada, ear tags, movements, polar bear, satellite collars, sea ice, subpopulation boundaries, tracking, USGS, Utqiafvik

Tracking west Alaskan polar bears in the Beaufort in October – all at Banks Is., CAN

Posted on November 5, 2016 | Comments Off

polar-bear-habitat_usgs-from-cbc-story-sept-19-2015

Two out of three polar bear females that were collared by USGS researchers near Barrow, Alaska last spring are hanging out on the northwest coast of Banks Island, Canada. The other bear (bright green icon) appears to have been collared on the ice off Prudoe Bay in April. And as I discussed last month, it’s unusual for bears from the western end of the Southern Beaufort subpopulation (or even the central region) to end up in the Northern Beaufort subpopulation territory.

beaufort-tracking-usgs-bear-movements-october-2016-sm

Original caption: “Movements of 3 satellite-tagged polar bears for the month of October, 2016. Polar bears were tagged in 2016 on the spring-time sea ice of the southern Beaufort Sea. All 3 of these bears have satellite collar transmitters. Polar bear satellite telemetry data are shown with AMSR2 remotely-sensed ice coverage from 29 October, 2016.” See full resolution image here and close-up below.

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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Alaska, Beaufort, denning, facts, females, freeze-up, ice growth, polar bear, satellite collars, sea ice, subpopulation boundaries, tracking, USGS

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea during August 2016

Posted on September 7, 2016 | Comments Off

Only three females with collars are still being tracked by USGS researchers in the Beaufort Sea and all of them spent August 2016 on the sea ice in the eastern portion, off the coast of Banks Island.

tranquilized_pb570_s-beaufort-march-2014_usgs

Meanwhile, as Arctic sea ice nears the annual low, NSIDC predicts that 2016 will likely not set a new record but may bottom-out below 2007 (the second-lowest since 1979). The impact of low September sea ice on polar bear health and survival, based on recent research reports, will be the topic of an upcoming post.
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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Beaufort Sea, females, NSIDC, polar bear, satellite collars, sea ice, September minimum, summer, tracking, USGS

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea and the issue of open water in May

Posted on June 2, 2016 | Comments Off

A map posted by USGS shows that the 13 polar bears with tags or collars tracked during April 2016 in the Beaufort Sea were down to 9 in May (7 females with collars, 2 subadult or adult males with tags). As two rather large patches of open water formed last month in the Beaufort – mostly due to winds and currents, rather than melt (see animation below, original post here) – a reasonable question is this: how have polar bears dealt with this somewhat unusual condition?

Polar_Bear_Biologist_USFWS_working_with_a_Bear_Oct 24 2001 Amstrup photo

Beaufort Sea breakup in April due to the effects of the Beaufort Gyre (NASA video):

There is also fairly extensive open water in Hudson Bay, so the same question can be asked for that region as well – but fortunately, we have data on tagged bears from both regions to give us a clue as to how the bears are faring.
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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged attacks, Beaufort Sea, cannibalism, ear tags, polar bear, problem bears, satellite collars, sea ice, starving, tracking, western hudson bay

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea in April 2016 and early polynya formation

Posted on May 9, 2016 | Comments Off

putting_collar_on_polar_bear_slider_USGS

Here’s the update on the polar bears fitted with satellite collars or ear tags in the Beaufort by USGS biologists over the last two years. Five new bears were added last month, which means there are now thirteen bears being tracked. Ice conditions are somewhat different than they have been in the past but concluding that such a situation means trouble is premature, I think (see here). Continue reading

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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged bearded seals, Beaufort Sea, Cape Bathurst, facts, open water, polar bear, polynya, ringed seals, satellite collars, sea ice, seals, thick sea ice, tracking, USGS

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – one tagged bear left at year end 2015

Posted on January 5, 2016 | Comments Off

I’ve combined the months of November and December for this post on USGS polar bear tracking in the Beaufort Sea because there’s not much to tell: there’s one tagged bear left and she’s going almost nowhere. Where’s the news in that?

Beaufort tracking USGS bear-movements-November 2015 sm

Movements of 1 satellite-tagged polar bear female for the month of November, 2015; shown with sea ice coverage at 30 November 2015. This bear was tagged in the spring of 2015 in the Southern Beaufort Sea. See original image here and December movements below.

Actually, it does tell us something: this female is probably in a sea ice den, a relative common phenomenon in the Beaufort Sea. And she’s on ice that’s out over very deep water. Continue reading

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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Arctic, bathymetry, Beaufort Sea, birth, continental shelves, cubs, facts, females, maternity dens, polar bear, tracking, USGS

Tracking polar bears – 3 out of 4 S. Beaufort bears on the ice during September 2015

Posted on October 3, 2015 | Comments Off

The shore of Alaska is not very important to Southern Beaufort polar bears – most of them stay on the sea ice during the summer and early fall, where they may or may not continue eating. These results of on-going satellite tracking studies by USGS¹ confirm results of previous studies.

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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Alaska, Beaufort Sea, Eliasson, Kaktovik, polar bear, satellite collars, sea ice, Southern Beaufort, tracking, USGS

It’s the middle of July – do researchers know where their Hudson Bay polar bears are?

Posted on July 14, 2015 | Comments Off

If so, they’re not saying. This year, with higher-than-average sea ice, we’ve heard much less than usual about the location of tagged Hudson Bay polar bears. Odd, isn’t it?

By this time last year, Polar Bears International rep Alysa McCall had published two reports on the location WHB polar bears tagged by the University of Alberta research team led by Andrew Derocher (Fig. 1 below).

Figure 1. Sea ice coverage and locations of female polar bears with tracking collars for 30 June 2014 and 8 July 2014 (black, Western Hudson Bay bears; blue, Southern Hudson Bay bears), courtesy Alysa McCall, Polar Bears International. Click to enlarge.

This year, there’s been nothing: not a single PBI mention of WHB breakup. Derocher tweeted a track map on 6 July (2/9 bears ashore), with no updates since, but PBI’s “Bear Tracker” has not been updated since 2 July. Compare this year’s ice cover on Hudson Bay (and elsewhere in Canada) to last year on this date (14 July): quite a difference.
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Posted in Sea ice habitat

Tagged breakup, collars, Hudson Bay, polar bear science, polar bears, sea ice, Southern Hudson Bay, tracking, western hudson bay