How search for Genghis Khan helps polar bears

April 27, 2021

Researchers are going on a bear hunt, using AI and radar to spot dens and track the threatened Arctic predators

Genghis Khan got his dying wish: despite attempts by archaeologists and scientists to find the Mongolian ruler’s final resting place, the location remains a secret 800 years after his death. The search for his tomb, though, has inspired an innovative project that could help protect polar bears.

“I randomly tuned into the radio one night and heard an expert talking about the use of synthetic aperture radar [SAR] to look for Genghis Khan’s tomb,” says Tom Smith, associate professor in plant and wildlife sciences at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah. “They were using SAR to penetrate layers of forest canopy in upper Mongolia, looking for the ruins of a burial structure.”

Talking to engineers, including BYU’s Dr David Long, Smith learned that SAR is used by the military to detect enemy camps, tanks and vehicles hidden beneath camouflage and is being studied as a potential tool for finding avalanche survivors. He and the team at Polar Bears International (PBI) had been looking for a technology to detect polar bear dens. “It was very serendipitous that I heard that broadcast,” says Smith.

Successful pilot tests using SAR to find simulated polar bear dens took place in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay in 2014 and 2015. The project was resurrected with trials in March 2021 on a snowy mountain plateau in Utah’s Manti-La Sal national forest.

Getting reliable data on denning sites is vital. “The Arctic national wildlife refuge is the perfect example,” says BJ Kirschhoffer, PBI’s director of field operations, who led the latest tests in Utah. “Industry wants to go in and pump oil. If we have a tool that definitively says exactly where polar bear dens are, that means keeping people away from those places. If we want bears, we need baby bears, so we’ve got to protect those dens.”