Video From a Polar Bear’s Point of View

Scientists would love to know how polar bears spend their time and how much their behavior is changing as a warming planet results in less sea ice during the summer.

But it’s not so easy to do. In a few places, like Churchill, Manitoba, bears congregate on land during the summer. But many stay on the ice or find other places to venture onto solid ground.

Researchers put satellite tracking collars on some of the bears to get an idea of where they move, but would also like to get a picture of their activities and energy use.

Anthony Pagano, a wildlife biologist with the United States Geological Survey, has been testing accelerometers on the collars — something like Fitbits for bears. The devices respond to activity. For people they are preset to recognize actions like jogging, and show a user how much energy has been expended.

To do something similar for bears, Mr. Pagano, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has mounted both accelerometers and small video cameras on bear collars. He can then see what the accelerometer records when the collar cam shows the bear paddling, for example.

Mr. Pagano has identified the accelerometer patterns that signal swimming, walking and resting. And he can use activity to determine how much energy the bear is using.

Video camera batteries don’t last long, but an accelerometer can record for a year or so. That activity record, combined with satellite tracking, could tell scientists if bears are spending more time searching for seals, or walking on land when the sea ice is diminished in the summer.

As a nice side benefit, the video cameras have come up with some never-before-seen glimpses of life from a polar bear’s point of view, rather a female polar bear’s point of view. The collars are all on female bears because the necks of males are wider than their heads, so the collars won’t stay on.

Recordings show killing a seal, courting a mate, chasing a ball at the Oregon Zoo, and walking, eating berries and lapping water on land. Polar Bears International and the zoo collaborated with the geological survey in putting the collars on about a dozen bears.

Mr. Pagano has not yet found a clear accelerometer signature for eating. He is still working on that, because the ultimate goal of the research is to help understand not only whether bears are using more energy because of declining sea ice, but whether they are finding less food.