Minnesota-trained biologist tracking polar bears by whisker

Polar bears may look alike to us, but their whiskers are as unique as fingerprints. Now a Minnesota-trained wildlife biologist is using "whisker print" technology -- and help from bear lovers -- to keep track of the threatened bear population.

Researcher Jane Waterman is asking Minnesotans and other ecotourists who visit Churchill, Manitoba, to share digital photos of polar bears to help her expand her research. If you have some polar bear photos, take a closer look.

"What's nice about polar bears is they have black skin and white fur," said Waterman. "So where the whisker comes out, it parts the fur a bit and makes spots where the black skin is showing through."

Waterman has studied bear behavior since 1994. She received her training as a behavioral biologist at the University of Minnesota and is now a professor at the University of Central Florida. She delivers digital photos of polar bears to associates who developed a computer program to extract the facial spots. What emerge are unique patterns that they have dubbed "whisker prints," which can be used to identify individual bears without sedating them.

She wants to learn whether the same bears return to Churchill every year, how long they stay around, whether they behave differently when ecotourists arrive, and whether the bears that wander into town or show up at the designated tourist viewing area are thinner or less healthy than those that avoid those areas.

The bears migrate north through Churchill each October and November, and gather in groups along the shores of Hudson Bay as they wait for sea ice to form. That is also peak time for ecotourists, who view the bears from "tundra buggies," room-size vehicles on huge wide tires run by tour companies.

By collecting digital images from tourists, drivers and naturalists, Waterman is assembling an archive that will piece together histories of individual polar bears.

A willing Minnesotan

Lynn Hommes of Aitkin, Minn., was in Churchill with her husband in October and took lots of pictures. She likes the idea of tourists participating in research and may submit some of her photos to the project.

"I'm not adept at uploading photos, but maybe our son could do it," she said.

The retired couple viewed arctic fox, arctic hare, snowy owls and caribou, said Hommes, but the biggest thrill was seeing polar bears in their natural habitat. Her group viewed about 15 of them during a two-day period.

Sometimes naturalists would see a couple of bears moving in the distance and direct drivers to move to areas where the ambling bruins were likely to cross. "Other times bears were laying in the willows or sunning and taking a nap on the beach [of Hudson Bay]," she said.

Waterman hopes Hommes and others will upload their photos to an online library that has just opened (polarbears.ucf.edu).

Research without darts

Some polar bears have scars or other recognizable marks, but most do not. The whisker-print program allows researchers to scan digital images for matching patterns -- much like crime labs do with fingerprints. And there's no need for tranquilizer darts, Waterman said.

Whisker prints could also help researchers learn from one another. The Canadian Wildlife Service sedates polar bears during the summer to study their health, and biologists have now begun to snap close-ups of their faces. By comparing whisker prints and finding matches with bears that show up in Churchill, Waterman said, wildlife managers will be able to learn about migration patterns, population sizes and even how the bear's body size changes with the seasons.

Additional data on polar bear health are especially critical now, said Waterman, because higher arctic temperatures have melted sea ice three to four weeks earlier each spring, reducing the time that polar bears can hunt seals on ice. The U.S. Interior Department listed the bears last May as a threatened species because of their declining ice habitat.

Now that the sea has frozen, the polar bears have dispersed and headed north, and the tundra buggies are wrapping up the season. But Waterman will be collecting and matching whisker prints in the months ahead as the bears spend the winter without human interruption.

"They do everything that's important out on the ice," said Waterman. "Food and sex."

Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388