"Oh, my God, that polar bear ripped his head off!"

on Frankel Island in northeastern Russia, a herd of musk oxen spent the most outrageous day of their life.

A polar bear suddenly broke into their line of sight and approached the musk cattle. The bear looks small, about the size of the average adult bear, but musk oxen are alert-after all, bears are threatening predators.

Musk ox does not run away, but forms a circle in place, staring closely at the bear getting closer and closer. Then a brave male decided to step forward-he left the group and headed straight for the enemy.

just then, something outrageous happened. The Polar Bear suddenly stood upright, took off its head, and threw it high into the air. The male musk ox who witnessed the whole process froze on the spot and gave up the attack.

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at the moment, Polar Bear breathes a sigh of relief-now he can safely withdraw from the research operation.

(polar bear suddenly becomes human? | Sergei Amarok)

Joel Berger (Joel Berger) is a conservation biologist, pretending to be a polar bear is his job. In this strange way, he tried to understand how animals in cold areas adapt to environmental changes.

Why pretend to be a polar bear?

in the Arctic, the ecological environment is changing rapidly: the climate is warming at twice the global average, a large amount of sea ice is melting, and the Snow Warning is gradually turning into rain. Berger's concern is how animals will react to these changes. For about 15 years, he has been watching musk oxen, large herbivores living in the Arctic Circle, with thick long hair and curved horns.

(Wikipedia of Ovibos moschatus, Joel Berger of Musk Bull)

as the sea ice disappears, polar bears are forced to move more on land, and they have more opportunities to meet musk oxen. To what extent do polar bears pose a threat to musk oxen? To find out this, Berger decided to put on a bear head and personally test the reaction of Musk Bull.

it's not enough to dress up as a bear. Berger has to learn how bears behave. Once in the character, instead of walking upright, he crawls with a ski stick wrapped in artificial fur as his "front legs". He wandered around, sniffing around, as close as a real polar bear. At the same time, the rangefinder and camera on him recorded the whole process.

(video: pretending to be a polar bear near Musk Bull, this time the Musk Bull chose to escape | Joel Berger)

of course, a rigorous experiment requires a control group. Berger's controlled experiment was to bring the reindeer close to the musk herd-of course, the reindeer was also pretending to be himself. Berger tested musk oxen's response to brown bears in Alaska in the same way before pretending to be a polar bear.

(experimental control group: a fake reindeer map | Joel Berger)

Polar bear cosplay sounds like fun, but it's very hard work. Sometimes it takes Berger three days to collect a data point and travels nearly 100 miles through the snow. There are also times when a group of experiments cannot be carried out successfully for many days due to weather conditions.

what do animals think when dressed like this?

can this magic headband fool animals? Judging from the experimental results, Berger's cosplay seems to be a success.

when he approached the musk bull disguised as a polar bear or a brown bear, he could always successfully trigger the defensive response of the subjects. Through experiments under different conditions, Berger verified various factors that affect the behavior of musk cattle, such as the sex ratio of the population, as well as different environmental conditions. He also found that musk oxen were more likely to run away in the face of polar bears than brown bears-perhaps because they found that polar bears were not very good at chasing prey.

(why do you wear red gloves to pretend to be a polar bear? Berger also prepared white gloves, but that pair was not warm enough, so he had to wear red thick gloves. | Sergey Amarok)

sometimes, male musk oxen will rush directly to drive out the enemy. For Berger, pretending to be a bear, is the main risk factor at work: he can't beat the strong musk ox, and there is no place to hide around. At this point, his way to save his life is to suddenly change from a bear to a human: stand up, take off the bear's headgear and throw it into the air. So far, this move has always succeeded in stopping the confused musk ox.

and the more thrilling moment is when the "fake polar bear" meets the real polar bear. In an attempt to get close to Musk Bull, a polar bear suddenly appeared nearby. Berger was worried: even if he suddenly took off his headband, he might not be able to scare him off like a musk ox. And if this fails, you may have to die in the open land where there is no place to hide.

Bear slowly paced closer, and Berger saw it clearly-it was a polar bear mother with two cubs behind her. Fortunately, the other party was not interested in fighting fakes: after seeing Berger in a bear headgear, the mother bear immediately changed direction and left with her child.

(in addition to polar bears, Berger also has rich experience in pretending to be brown bears | Joel Berger)

this polar adventure of pretending to be a polar bear ends unexpectedly: Berger was arrested while studying in Russia because of the "wrong license date". Although he was acquitted, he could not come back for the next three years. So Berger moved from the Arctic to South America to study the endangered Chilean horse moose.

now, I don't know if Musk BullI also thinks of the strange polar bear who walks on his knees and always makes a sudden U-turn.