The camera keeping a bear-y close watch for polar bears
A mocked-up imaged of a polar bear appearing on a door camera
- Published
A clever camera that can recognise polar bears is being tested in a Canadian town, where the animals sometimes wander close to homes and businesses.
The device, called Bear-vision, works a little like a video doorbell.
It watches the area around it and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to learn what a polar bear looks like.
Its developers hope it will eventually be able to send an alert when one approaches, giving people time to move somewhere safe.
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The first Bear-vision system is being set up at a waste facility in Churchill, a town beside Hudson Bay in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
Churchill is sometimes called the "Polar Bear Capital of the World".
Every autumn, hundreds of polar bears gather near the town while they wait for the sea to freeze. They need sea ice because it gives them a platform from which to hunt seals.
But, climate change is making the Arctic warmer. The ice-free season around Hudson Bay is now three to four weeks longer than it was in the 1980s.
This means the bears must spend more time on land, increasing the chance that they will come into contact with people.
One of many polar bear alert warning signs posted inside the town of Churchill, Manitoba, in Canada
Bear-vision is a smaller and cheaper version of another system nicknamed Bear-dar.
Bear-dar uses radar, which sends out signals to detect movement, together with cameras that help experts identify and follow nearby animals.
Conservation group Polar Bears International is also testing other ways of keeping bears away without harming them.
These include drones, very high-pitched sounds and new smells designed to discourage bears from approaching communities.
New electric fences have also been installed around Churchill's waste facility as rubbish can attract hungry bears because they may smell food inside it.
A mother polar bear with cubs in Wager Bay near Hudson Bay, in the Churchill area of Canada
Krista Wright, the Polar Bears International's executive director, said: "We're experiencing firsthand how coexistence (people and wild animals living in the same area) is becoming part of everyday life in more places."
Tests of the systems are taking place around Polar Bear Week, held from 1 to 7 November 2026.
The event aims to teach people about polar bears and the challenges they face as their icy habitat changes.
