An early-warning system, aided by radar and AI, aims to help mitigate human-polar bear encounters in the Arctic.Bear-dar scans the landscape for polar bears and alerts people if a bear is spotted approaching human settlements.In May, the system detected a polar bear family and helped people at a weather station guide them back onto sea ice.As sea ice rapidly melts due to global warming, polar bears are losing their habitats; as a result, they’re increasingly foraging for food on land, putting them in growing contact with humans.
How do you spot polar bears in the vast, and often dark, wilderness of the Arctic?
Enter Bear-dar.
This AI-driven radar system scans the landscape to spot approaching polar bears. The technology was developed by the nonprofit Polar Bears International in collaboration with U.S.-based security firm Spotter Global in a bid to mitigate encounters between the animals and people.
“We wanted to add another tool to the polar bear safety toolbox,” Alysa McCall, director of science at Polar Bears International, told Mongabay in a video interview. “With an early-warning detection system, there’s less chance of a bear getting killed because it surprised somebody.”
