This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Steve Mursky.

Got a minute?

So I just don't approach at least initially

a group of muscocks.

Joel Berger with the Wildlife Conservation Society and Colorado State University.

What I do is to take into account other factors that might reflect their responses.

And so what I need to know is something about the group size,

whether or not males are in the group. I need to know something about snow depth,

about snow penetration or how hard the snow is and then I'll approach and try to

understand whether they stay whether they flee whether they charge. Oh one more

important point when Berger approaches the muscoxin on Russia's Rangel Island

north of the Arctic Circle, he's dressed up like a polar bear.

I know the media has a good time when we dress up as animal models. Of course they do.

But remember, two noble laureates, Conrad Lorenz and Nico Tinbergen, led the way for getting

inside the minds of animals, and they've done this through innovative models.

Polar bears prefer seals for their meals, but the loss of sea ice is forcing them onto the land to hunt for prey that's usually not on their menu.

The idea here is to gauge the response of Muscoxin to this formerly rare threat.

It's really tough to get inside the mind of a muscocks and especially to understand from mere

anecdotes how they may respond in this emerging dynamic.

Berger works with Russian researchers on their side of the Bering Strait and with Americans in Alaska.

We're currently in the process of evaluating more than 100 simulated interactions,

...