UW-Stout grad, son help track polar bears

Mar. 3—EAU CLAIRE — BJ Kirschhoffer faced a problem at work, so he approached his father, UW-Stout alumnus Jon Kirschhoffer, with an unusual request.

"Dad, we have this need to attach tags to a polar bear. You work for a company that makes things stick. Can you find a way to stick this to a polar bear?" asked BJ, director of field operations for the nonprofit organization Polar Bears International.

Jon, an advanced research specialist at 3M in St. Paul, was undaunted. After all, the company where he worked for nearly 40 years until retiring in December is known for Post-It Notes, Scotch Tape and other adhesives.

BJ grew up in house with a drawer full of such sticky stuff, so he thought of his dad right away while attending a meeting where people were trying to come up with less-invasive ways to attach GPS transmitters to polar bears.

The father-son partnership led to a tech challenge at 3M that has resulted in several polar bears near Churchill, Manitoba — about 1,000 miles north of Eau Claire — testing prototypes for tracking devices this winter.

"We're pretty happy, especially with COVID, to get anything out this year," BJ said from Polar Bears International headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. "We got tags on five bears, and three of them were still on last I checked."

Getting to this point was no simple matter because polar bears are notoriously difficult to study.

Not only are the creatures dangerous, but they live a rugged lifestyle in environments that are incredibly cold and inhospitable for people.

The shape of polar bears adds to the challenge of tracking them, BJ said, noting that satellite collars can only be placed on adult females. Since adult male polar bears' necks are as wide as their heads, the collars slide right off.

In addition, young bears grow so fast that they can't be safely collared. They typically weigh a little over a pound at birth, leave the den two months later at 25 pounds and grow to as large as their mother — 500 to 600 pounds — in less than three years.

"You can't put a radio collar on an animal that grows that fast," BJ said. "It would choke them."

Climate change threat

Researchers study polar bear behavior in the Arctic to better understand movement patterns and habitat use while collecting other data. Some populations are not well studied because of the remoteness of their home environments, BJ said.

With the latest estimates putting the polar bear population at about 23,000 worldwide, they are not considered endangered, But polar bears are listed as a vulnerable species, mostly because of the steady loss of sea ice caused by climate change.

"They are incredibly capable animals," BJ said. "To make a living, all they need is sea ice and they can make it happen. But, of course, climate change is taking that sea ice away."

Coincidentally, the Kirschhoffers were surrounded by polar bear statues and images while living in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, throughout BJ's childhood, and now he makes his living studying the real thing.

BJ jump-started 3M's effort to find a way to make a tag adhere to a bear by sending a polar bear pelt to his father at 3M headquarters in St. Paul.

"I opened it up and threw it out on the floor in a passageway and people started coming out of the woodwork. It gave me a visible vehicle to get people excited and get them on board with the project," Jon said, adding that many people think of polar bears as "big, fuzzy, cute animals despite the fact that they want to eat you."

'Burr on fur'

Jon kicked off the project, nicknamed "Burr on Fur" because of inventors' desire to attach tracking devices to bears' fur instead of having to use permanent ear tags or surgical implants, by reaching out to 3M researchers through the company's tech forum, a virtual gathering place where employees share ideas and technologies. A two-day brainstorming session in November 2018 launched the creative process.

A strong response to the completely volunteer effort ultimately led to dozens of prototypes, many of which were tested on actual swatches of polar bear fur from the hide. The tags were put through testing that included exposure to frigid temperatures, immersion in saltwater and abrasion and pull tests in an attempt to imitate what a bear might put them through.

"But you can only test so much in a laboratory," said Jon, who grew up in Wausau and majored in industrial design at UW-Stout in Menomonie. "At some point you need to get these things on a real animal and see what they can do."

The list of prototypes was pared to a handful of models, from mechanical to adhesive solutions, that showed the most potential. The prototype tags are nontoxic, temporary and attach only to a bear's fur, meaning they will drop off when the animals naturally molt in spring. One of the most promising is essentially like a coarse brush that gets spun into the fur.

The project moved out of the lab and into the field when testing began in December on bears in the western Hudson Bay area that were captured after wandering too close to Churchill.

"I am tremendously excited to take this science out of the lab and into the Arctic on wild polar bears," said Jon, who was forced to train conservation officers virtually on how to attach the trackers because of the COVID-19 pandemic. "This challenge really exemplifies the collaborative spirit, science and creativity that drives innovation at 3M."

The concepts, which also will be tested in zoos around the world, have the potential to be applied to other animals as well, said BJ, who already has received inquiries from researchers studying wolves, giraffes and beavers.

"We figure if we can get something to stick to polar bears, it could work on anything," BJ said. "Time will tell."

Jon, now of Stillwater, Minnesota, intends to remain involved in the project in retirement, allowing him to stay connected to a pursuit his son is passionate about and perhaps have the chance to advance research on animals he has been fascinated by since seeing them during a visit to Manitoba with his wife in 2010.

"It's a very fun project," he said. "Being there and seeing this whole thing play out in front of you in the wild really reinforces the importance of this work."