How bear facial recognition can assist ecologists manage wildlife

When a grizzly bear attacked a bunch of fourth and fifth graders in western Canada in late November 2025, it triggered greater than only a rescue operation for the eleven injured – 4 with serious injuries. Local authorities attempted to locate the bear in query in an effort to relocate or euthanize it. depending on the consequence of their assessment.

The attack in Bella Coola, British Columbia, was highly unusual bear behavior and sparked an effort to determine exactly what happened and why. That meant locating the bear involved – based on witnesses, it was a mother grizzly bear with two cubs.

Searchers combed the realm on foot and by helicopter and captured 4 bears. Through DNA comparisons with evidence from the attack, each of the captured bears was freed and released back into the wild. After greater than three weeks without finding the bear answerable for the attackOfficials called off the search.

The case highlights the issue of identifying individual bears, which becomes necessary when a bear exhibits unusual behavior. To humans, bears are likely to look very similar, and for untrained observers it could possibly be very difficult to inform them apart. DNA testing is great for differentiating people, but it surely is expensive and requires physical samples from bears. Being trapped and having other contact with people is just too stressful for themAnd Wildlife managers often try to reduce trapping.

Recent advances in Computer vision and other forms of artificial intelligence offer a possible alternative: facial recognition for bears.

As cultural anthropologistI examine how scientists produce knowledge and technologies and the way latest technologies are transforming ecological science and conservation practices. Part of my research involved the work of Computer scientists and ecologists are developing facial recognition for animals. These tools, reflecting each technological advances and broader public interest in wildlife, have the potential to rework the best way scientists and most of the people understand animals by attending to know previously anonymous creatures as individuals.

New ways to discover animals

A facial recognition tool for bears called BearID is developed by computer scientists Ed Miller And Mary Nguyenwork with Melanie Claphama behavioral ecologist who works for the Nanwakolas Council of First Nations, who conducts applied research on grizzly bears in British Columbia.

It uses deep learning, a subset of machine learning that uses artificial neural networks Analyze images of bears and discover individual animals. The photos are from a group of images taken by naturalists in Knight Inlet, British Columbia, in addition to by National Park Service staff and independent photographers on the Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska.

The body of bears changes dramatically: within the spring after hibernation they’re thin fat and prepared for winter in the autumn. However, the geometry of every bear's face – the arrangement of necessary features similar to eyes and nose – stays relatively stable across seasons and years.

BearID uses an algorithm to locate bear faces in images and take measurements between these key features. Each animal has unique measurements, so a photograph taken yesterday will be matched with a picture taken a while ago.

Not only does bear identification help discover bears which have attacked people or are otherwise causing problems to people, but it could possibly also help ecologists and wildlife managers more accurately estimate the dimensions of bear populations. And it could possibly help scientific research just like the behavioral ecology projects Clapham works on by allowing individual tracking of animals and due to this fact a greater understanding of bear behavior.

Miller built one Web tool for automatic bear detection within the Brooks River webcams that originally inspired the project. The BearID team also collaborated with Rebecca ZugProfessor and Head of the Carnivore Laboratory on the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, with the event of a bear identification model for Andean bears to be used in bear ecology and conservation research in Ecuador.

Animal faces are less controversial

Human facial recognition is incredibly controversial. In 2021, Meta has stopped using its facial recognition systemthat robotically identified people in photos and videos uploaded to Facebook. The company described it as a robust technology that, while potentially useful, shouldn’t be currently suitable for widespread use on its platform.

In the years following this announcement, Meta regularly reintroduced facial recognition technology and used it for recognition Scams involving public figures And to confirm the identity of users after their accounts were hacked.

When used on humans, critics describe facial recognition technology as “Plutonium of AI” and a dangerous tool with few legitimate uses. Even like facial recognition develop into increasingly more widespreadResearchers remain convinced of the risks. Researchers on the American Civil Liberties Union emphasize this ongoing threat to Americans' constitutional rights through facial recognition and the harm attributable to inaccurate identifications.

In wildlife, the moral controversies could also be less pressing, although there continues to be potential in animals harmed by people using AI systems. And facial recognition could help wildlife managers discover, euthanize or relocate bears that cause significant problems to people.

A give attention to specific animals

Wildlife ecologists sometimes find Focusing on individual animals is problematic. Naming animals could cause them to “seem less wild.” Names with cultural significance can even determine people's interpretation of animal behavior. As Katmai rangers note, people may interpret the behavior of a bear named Killer in a different way than that of a bear named Fluffy.

Wildlife management decisions must be made for animal groups and territorial areas. When people form a reference to individual animals, also by naming themDecisions develop into more complicated, whether within the wild or in captivity.

When people come into contact with certain animals, they might object to management decisions that harm individuals within the interest of the health of all the population. For example, wildlife managers may have to relocate or euthanize animals to make sure the health of all the population or ecosystem.

But knowing and understanding bears as individual animals can even deepen the fascination and connections people have already got with bears.

For example, Fat bear weekan annual contest hosted by explore.org and Katmai National Park attracted over one million votes in 2025 as people campaigned and voted for his or her favorite bear. The The winner was Bear 32also often called “chunk”. Chunk was identified from photos and videos the old-fashioned way, based on human observations of distinctive features – similar to a big scar across his snout and a broken jaw.

In addition to identifying problem animals, I imagine algorithmic tools like facial recognition could help a fair broader audience of individuals deepen their understanding of bears as an entire by connecting with one or two specific animals.