The Arctic environment has been undergoing drastic changes over the past few decades. The rapid warming of this ecosystem is likely to affect various aspects of the bears and other species lives including:
- Changes in species habitats and ranges
- Greater habitat overlap between polar, grizzly, and black bears
- Increase in interaction between the three bear species and with the other species of Wapusk National Park
- Changes in the diversity of other tundra and boreal forest mammals on the landscape including caribou, moose, wolves, moose, red and Arctic fox, wolverines, snowshoe and Arctic hares, and potentially many other species
The sea ice on the Hudson Bay off the coast of Wapusk National Park completely melts every year. But, with the climate change experienced in this area, the sea ice is melting sooner and freezing later.
Polar bears come ashore when the ice melts. They however rely on sea ice for hunting their favourite meal – ringed seals. But with less and less time spent on the ice, they have limited time to hunt and maintain their body weight. This makes polar bears very sensitive to a changing climate. Hungry bears could mean more aggressive bears who are less afraid of humans, and less food might make the bears more willing to approach people and camps in search of a meal. Our research is trying to understand these complex relationships and we want to know when the bears are coming to camp and why.
Trail cameras have become popular in ecological research because they allow researchers to monitor wildlife year-round, even in the harshest of conditions, like those in Wapusk National Park. We need your help annotating images so we can convert these photographs into a database we can use to answer ecological questions.
