Thanks to citizen scientists, a research project from the University of Saskatchewan is getting a clearer look at how polar bears and other wildlife are adapting to climate change in northern Manitoba.

Associate professor at the School of Environment and Sustainability, Doug Clark, says they have ten years worth of pictures from cameras in remote areas of Wapusk National Park, where shots are triggered by movement.  They have been uploaded to the internet and volunteers are combing through them and reporting what they see.

These citizen scientists are given a list of questions for each photo, and a field guide to help them answer the questions, like whether a bear looks well fed or not.  Clark says fifteen people review each picture to make sure there are no errors.  As of early April, the volunteers had already gone through 34,000 images.

Clark adds that the research is looking at the behaviour, distribution and activity of polar bears, grizzly bears, black bears and other wildlife.  He describes the area as right at the edge of the forest and the northern tundra, because normally you wouldn’t see all of these types of bears in the same place.

He notes that although they are in the same area of northern Manitoba, you don’t see a whole lot of interacting.