Colorado State University biologist Joel Berger's new book Extreme Conservation tells about the many projects he's worked on to study the habits and habitats of wildlife all over the world. Learning how to save the world's species often involves trauma to individual animals with the aim of saving the species as a whole. This bothered Berger so much that he goes to extremes to limit the damage done in research. Instead of equipping musk oxen in the Arctic with radio collars, he will locate a herd by plane, and then spend weeks tracking them with an expedition equipped with snow machines, and finally approaching them by foot.
Zhang: One thing you study is how musk oxen react to bears. Obviously you can’t let loose a wild bear yourself, so you have decided to be the bear.
Berger: [laughs] So the quick elevator-pitch context: With less ice, we’re finding more polar bears on [continental] land or on Wrangel Island, which is this Russian island that I had the privilege to work on. We also find more grizzly bears going further north. We’re trying to figure out if musk ox can figure out how dangerous bears are. Polar bear and grizzly interactions are so rare. So when I put on my science hat, I needed a decent sample size, and the best way to garner a decent sample size is to do what’s called an experiment. I become the bear. I don a cape, a bear head, and I approach on all fours.
Zhang: Wait, what is your bear costume made of?
Berger: I try to make it lightweight, so it’s a styrofoam head covered in white fur or brown fur, depending on if it’s a polar bear or a grizzly bear. The Russians gave me a Russian sniper suit so I’m dressed in white with a bear head. In the U.S., I have a brown cape. I use ski poles as my front legs and my legs are the rears. It’s pretty exhausting. It sounds fun and crazy. It’s probably crazy. It’s not so much fun. There are tense moments, but we do get the data and our sample size is decent at this point.
Read more about Berger's work in an interview at the Atlantic.
(Image credit: Joel Berger)