Lay people from tourists to hunters and villagers will be able to report on the condition of any polar bears they encounter thanks to a new standardized condition score card developed by PBI Advisory Council members Diana Weinhardt and Geoff York, with drawings by Alaskan artist and wildlife photographer Doug Lindstrand. Weinhardt came up with the idea after noticing similar cards in veterinary clinics for cats and dogs.

The concept, which is beautiful in its simplicity, ensures that subjective measures of polar bear body condition are as uniform as possible. “The idea is to make it possible for researchers, husbandry professionals, hunters, and guides to use the same guidelines in scoring bears across the Arctic so that these measures are more comparable,” says York.

Scientists have used a “one to five” rating system to describe a polar bear's body condition for more than 30 years, but various research groups used slightly different descriptions for each category. Dr. Ian Stirling standardized these descriptions in a paper published in 2007. Weinhardt's idea was to make it easy for observers to assign a rating number by creating a simple graphic chart based on Stirling's text.

Weinhardt enlisted the help of Lindstrand and Geoff York, then a polar bear scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and now with World Wildlife Fund’s Arctic Program (WWF), in developing the score card. The three of them worked with a team of researchers from Alaska to refine the drawings and text descriptions. They then sent the draft score card across the polar bear community for review and comments.

The new score card will help everyone from scientists to tour guides assign accurate condition ratings to the polar bears they see. “We anticipate this will be used by a much broader group of people who regularly contact polar bears and that the resulting information will be useful in monitoring condition changes over time,” York says.