Google Street View has climbed Mount Fuji, gone underwater and visited the ruins of Pompeii, but its latest project aims to put the polar bear "capital of the world" on the map.
Street View partnered with Polar Bear International to capture images of Churchill, Canada, home to one of the largest polar bear populations on Earth. Both organizations aim to highlight how global warming has negatively affected the polar bears' habitat.
"[Polar Bear International] has been working in this region for more than 20 years, and we’ve witnessed firsthand the profound impact of warmer temperatures and melting sea ice on the polar bear’s environment," Krista Wright, the executive director of Polar Bear International, wrote in a guest post on Google's official blog. "Bringing Street View to Canada's tundra establishes a baseline record of imagery associated with specific geospatial data—information that’s critical if we’re to understand and communicate the impact of climate change on their sensitive ecosystem."
The team mounted Google's Street View Trekker onto a tundra vehicle so they could trek through the region without disturbing wildlife. They spent last October and November gathering footage along the Hudson Bay coastline as polar bears waited for the water to freeze over.