Oregon Zoo Polar Bear ‘Tasul’ Assists Climate Change Research Project [VIDEO]

A polar bear Tasul from the Oregon zoo will now assist researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey to study the effects of climate change on polar bears as well as other Arctic species.

The researchers have fitted Tasul with a high tech collar that has an accelerometer, a device found in smartphones. This device will detect minute alterations in direction and movement. Tasul's everyday behavior including eating, sleeping, walking and swimming will be converted into electronic digital signals with the help of the device. Tasul's movements are being videotaped by Anthony Pagano, a wildlife biologist with the USGS Alaska Science Center, and the study lead.

A similar accelerometer has been fitted in 10 different free roaming polar bears in the Arctic. The main purpose of doing so is to match the electronic digital signals of the 10 Arctic bear with the movements of Tasul.

"Our research shows that polar bears are being displaced from sea ice habitats they formerly used," Pagano said in a press statement. "This collaborative project with the Oregon Zoo will help us understand the implications between going to land or staying with the ice as it retreats hundreds of kilometers north into the Arctic Basin."

Another research wildlife biologist Karyn Rode with USGS in Alaska is keen on knowing whether the polar bears' diet is affected with the retreating sea ice. She believes loss of sea ice limits the polar bears' access to ice seals and this in turns hampers their health and ability to reproduce, reports  OPB.

Currently we have limited tools to know what polar bears in the wild are eating and how much their eating. If this new technique works, we'll be able to look back at 30 years of hair and blood samples we've collected and determine what the diets of those bears were and how it might have changed with changing sea ice conditions," said Rode.

Apart from this, the zoo is providing hair and blood samples of Tasul that will help researchers study about the modifications in the polar bear's diet with the changing climate..

The study is part of the USGS Changing Arctic Ecosystems research project.