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15:54, 23 July 2025
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Russian Scientists Turn to AI to Monitor Polar Bears in the Arctic

Researchers plan to use neural networks to analyze hundreds of thousands of infrared images and assess the health of polar bear populations.

In Russia, scientists are enlisting artificial intelligence to help study endangered polar bears in the Arctic. Researchers from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution carried out three expeditions along the Taimyr Peninsula, collecting extensive data on the species.

Working from aerial surveys, the team counted individual bears, tagged them with satellite trackers, and took genetic samples. One of the key goals was to assess population density. The expeditions returned with more than 170,000 standard images and 540,000 infrared photos, plus 12,000 additional reference shots, according to TASS and Rosneft.

The sheer volume of material will now be processed using artificial intelligence. Scientists aim to train a dedicated neural network to automatically analyze the images and accurately count the animals. This will not only provide a snapshot of the current population, but also enable long-term monitoring of population trends.

Russian researchers are also applying similar AI-driven tools to monitor other wildlife. In forests, camera traps automatically feed images to neural-network software, which identifies the species and estimates numbers on the ground.

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Russian Scientists Turn to AI to Monitor Polar Bears in the Arctic | IT Russia