Polar Bear Dens Are Hard for Humans to See, but Drone-Mounted Radar Can Help
When he developed a drone-mounted radar system that could penetrate multiple layers of snow, Rolf-Ole Rydeng Jenssen imagined using it to measure snowfall or predict avalanches. Both applications would be helpful in subarctic Tromsø, Norway, where Jenssen works as an engineer at the interdisciplinary Norwegian Research Center (NORCE). But one January night a group of researchers called NORCE to ask about a very different use for the flying radar: finding hidden polar bears.Pregnant polar bears build dens by digging holes…