What Do Bears Want?

Chicago's Brookfield Zoo is looking for outside help to solve one of its hairiest problems: bored polar bears. If four Dartmouth College engineering students can succeed in exciting the bears, they'll get an A on their thesis.

For over a decade, zoo experts have been trying to keep bears stimulated in Brookfield's habitats, without much success. This is the first time the zoo has put the challenge to engineers, however. Dartmouth '95s Linda Blumberg, Brian Spence, and Pam Brockmeier, along with senior Anthony Mamone, are trying to determine what type of structure will be best for the polar bears to keep them stimulated over the long run. Because bears spend most of their time in the wild looking for food, the engineers say they will design their project around feeding behaviors. "It would be hard to get them to hunt in the small grottoes," notes Brockmeier. "But we can design something that will get them to forage."

One idea is to create places to hide food in the enclosure's rock wall. The students are also trying to come up with a toy or structure that will challenge the creatures.

As for the students' grades: they'll let the bears decide.