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  • WHERE I WORK

Who wants to be a polar bear?

Joel Berger braves freezing temperatures and charging musk oxen to learn how melting sea ice is affecting mammalian encounters.
By
  1. Amber Dance

    1. Amber Dance is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, California.

Joel Berger, wearing a polar bear costume, throws the fake head into the air in front of a muskoxen herd in the Russian Arctic

Joel Berger studies wildlife conservation at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and is a senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City. Credit: Sergei Abarok

As a wildlife-conservation biologist studying climate change, I want to understand the evolving environment through the eyes of large animals. My work — usually in cold, remote places — involves finding animals, and ways to eat, sleep and be warm. I might be miserable, but I get insights that others cannot into what animals are doing.

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Nature 597, 296 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02429-2

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