Conservation and wildlife
Is Arctic walrus next protected species? 
(Ben Anderson/Alaska Dispatch, 12 March 2013) -- Recently, a federal appeals court ruling determined that polar bears, those poster children of the effects of climate change, could keep their "threatened" status as listed under the Endangered Species Act, despite objections from the state of Alaska and other entities. Now, the Pacific walrus -- another species that calls Alaska home -- may become another animal to be listed on the basis of climate change's negative effect on its summer sea ice habitat. Another recent court ruling said that a determination can now be made on whether or not to include a backlog of more than 260 species for the endangered species list. ... The walrus was originally listed as a candidate for protection under the ESA in 2011, when a yearlong review by the FWS found that the walrus may merit eventual ESA safeguards. "After review of all the available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing the Pacific walrus as endangered or threatened is warranted," the agency wrote. "Currently, however, listing the Pacific walrus is precluded by higher priority actions to amend the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants." A big part of the recommendation came as a result of receding levels of summertime Arctic sea ice, widely attributed to warming temperatures related to climate change. 2007 marked a record low for Arctic sea ice extent, a record broken again just last year. In 1980, the U.S. Geological Survey says that Arctic sea ice covered about 7.5 million square kilometers. In 2012, it covered less than 3.5 million square kilometers. Those low ice extents were also what led to the polar bear's initial listing as threatened under the ESA in 2008, and Pacific walruses may now face the same fate.
Posted 12 March 2013; 8:13:56 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and wildlife, March13
'Protect reindeer' say Sweden’s indigenous Sami
(Radio Sweden via Eye on the Arctic, 11 March 2013) -- The Sami, an indigenous people living in northern Sweden, want higher compensation for their reindeer that are killed by other animals, reports Swedish Radio news. More than 5,000 bear, lynx, wolverine, and wolves are found in Sweden today. That's double the number of predatory wildlife from the time the reindeer compensation system was put in place in the mid-1990s. Most predatory animals live in reindeer areas. The Swedish National Sami Association says many of the 51 Sami reindeer herding communities are having a tough time. The association wants to reduce the numbers of predatory animals in their areas and get more in compensation for reindeer losses. Lena Ek, Sweden's Environmental Minister, says the issue will be taken up this fall when the government presents its plan for predatory wildlife. Sweden needs to be prepared to pay if it wants to continue to protect such animals, she says.
Posted 12 March 2013; 7:58:33 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and wildlife, Indigenous Issues, March13, Nordic Region, Sweden
Reindeer capacity of pastures will be calculated in Yamal
(Sever-Press via Yamal.org, 6 March 2013) -- This year the Department of Agro-industrial Complex, Trade and Provision of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug plans to undertake scientific and research work "Elaboration of the methodology for calculation of reindeer capacity of pastures on the territory of the region". The director of the department, Vyacheslav Kucherenko, explained the project to the conference of Yamal Union of Reindeer Herders, and said the methodology is intended to yield information for substantiating and taking administrative decisions on planning economic and nature-protecting activities and also use for practical aims by economic subjects. By his words, intensive industrial development of Yamal brings to decrease in territories of pastures. At the same time, number of domestic reindeer in the territory of Yamalskiy and Tazovskiy districts stays on the high level, which brings to more intensive use of reindeer pastures. Thus, it is necessary to elaborate the methodology and to calculate reindeer capacity of pastures on the territory of the region.
Posted 11 March 2013; 4:27:10 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Economic issues, Indigenous Issues, March13, Research, Russia, Siberia
In rare joint effort, Russia and US team to help polar bears
(David M. Herszenhorn/New York Times via Anchorage Daily News, 4 March 2013) -- MOSCOW -- With relations between Russia and the United States increasingly frosty because of entrenched disagreements over Syria, child adoptions, missile systems and other issues, the two countries have quietly joined forces to help polar bears. Russia and the United States, two of the five countries where polar bears live, are now the main allies pushing for greater protection for the bears under a global treaty on endangered species, which is being reviewed this week at a conference in Bangkok. "It really seems that both countries were willing to put aside their differences in order to work together to help save the polar bear," said Jeffrey Flocken, North American regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Russia's decision to cooperate with the United States not only defies a recent wave of anti-Americanism here, but it also reverses Moscow's opposition to a similar U.S. proposal at the endangered species conference three years ago. The impetus for this shift may be the increasing danger to polar bears and the return to the presidency of Vladimir V. Putin, who often expresses his personal affection for wildlife and has declared 2013 to be the "Year of the Environment" in Russia.
Posted 4 March 2013; 5:35:49 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, International, March13
Police seize 600 kilos of mammoth tusks in Far East
(RIA Novosti, 11 February 2013) -- BLAGOVESHCHENSK, February 11 (RIA Novosti) – Police in Russia’s Far East Amur Region have seized some 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds) of mammoth tusks from residents of the neighboring Republic of Yakutia, the regional interior affairs department said on Monday. “Police found 71 tusks weighing about 600 kilograms at a warehouse [in Blagoveschensk],” the department said, adding three men were planning to sell the tusks to Chinese nationals. Police are currently investigating whether the fossils were obtained legally. The world market price of mammoth tusk is almost equal to the price of silver. One kilogram is worth 5,000 rubles ($166) at international auctions in Yakutsk, capital of Yakutia. Some 90 percent of the mammoth remains found so far have come from Yakutia. The region’s extreme weather conditions and permafrost allow scientists to find their remains largely intact.
Posted 11 February 2013; 3:49:39 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Far East Russia, February13, International, Laws and legal, Russia
Coca-Cola kickstarts Arctic campaign with WWF donation
(Reuters, 17 January 2013) -- Coca-Cola will give 3 million euros ($4 million) to conservation group WWF over the next three years to help kickstart a campaign to protect the Arctic from the impacts of global warming, the world's biggest soft-drinks maker said. The Europe-wide campaign, which launched on Thursday in London, is aimed at raising awareness and funding to help protect the natural habitat of the polar bear, which is under threat from climate change. ... The campaign aims to raise awareness and funds in European countries for the plight of the polar bear. The money raised will go towards protecting an area in the Arctic where summer sea ice should last the longest, WWF and Coca-Cola said.
Posted 18 January 2013; 7:50:54 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Environment, Europe, January13, Prizes, awards and recognitions
Conservationists want ban on products made from polar bears
(Brett Smith/RedOrbit, 26 December 2012) -- Some conservationists are calling for increased restrictions on the buying and selling of rugs and other goods made from polar bears—citing the animal’s threatened status. Others disagree—saying climate change is the bears’ biggest threat and focusing on their trade de-emphasizes the true reason behind their endangerment. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which has long championed the polar bears’ cause, takes the position that climate change, not international trade, is their most significant threat. “If we were tempted to support (a ban) on the basis of trade being a major threat, it is not,” Colman O’Criodain, WWF’s wildlife trade policy analyst, told BBC News. “You could say that this is just a distraction factor and that it could have the effect of making people think something has been done to address the threat when the net effect will be almost negligible,” he added. Officials at the Humane Society International/UK disagree, citing a 375 percent increase in the number of polar bear skins offered at auction over the past five years as evidence that the animals are being hunted more than ever. ... Where some see a battle to protect polar bears by banning the trade of certain products, others see a move to de-emphasize the activities responsible for climate change. “The American government is using the threat of climate change to justify banning the international trade in polar bear parts while utterly failing to do anything to reduce their own activities,” Inuit spokesman James Eetoolook of the Nunavut Tunngavik told BBC News. In denouncing a potential ban, Eetoolook’s group cited their own research study, released earlier this year and conducted in the western side of Hudson Bay, which found the local polar bear population numbered around 1,000 animals and was possibly expanding. “This is not about climate change. This is about how polar bears were used to draw attention to climate change. It was dangerous and wrong for scientists to use incomplete data to make predictions,” Eetoolook said back in April when the study was released.
Posted 3 January 2013; 1:21:35 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and wildlife, December12, International, Laws and legal
U.S. proposes ban on polar bear trade
(CBC North, 5 October 2012) -- The United States is again lobbying for an international ban on the trade of polar bear parts, after a previous attempt failed in 2010. Officials have submitted a proposal to reclassify the animals under Appendix I — as a species threatened with extinction — of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES. That would shut down the commercial trade of hides, teeth and claws. It would also effectively shut down international polar bear sport hunts. This is the second time the U.S. has tried to get a ban on the international trade of polar bear parts. In 2010, the first American proposal was defeated at a meeting in Qatar. Nunavut Tunngavik, the Nunavut land claims organization, is outraged by the move. "The polar bear population is very healthy right now and traditional knowledge says that the numbers are increasing,” said NTI vice-president James Eeteelook. Canada is home to about two-thirds of the world’s 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Terry Audla said he was disappointed by the American proposal.
Posted 12 October 2012; 11:46:10 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar matters, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, October12
Bald eagle spotted in community in Canada's eastern Arctic
(CBC News via Eye on the Arctic, 7 May 2012) -- Whale Cove, a small predominantly Inuit community in Canada's eastern Arctic territory of Nunavut, is being ruffled by the rare sighting of a bald eagle. Elder Sam Arualak, who has spent most of his life in Whale Cove, said bald eagles are not common to the area. "No, not at all, you don't see them around here," he said in Inuktitut, the Inuit language dialect spoken in the community. "I think they usually belong along the treeline. It is rare to see them in Nunavut." According to residents, the large bird of prey has been feeding in the community of about 400 people along the western coast of Hudson Bay. An Environment Canada spokesperson confirmed the bird is a bald eagle and that it is outside its normal range. Mary-Jones Kriterdluk said the eagle's arrival has caused some excitement. She added it was the biggest bird she had ever seen and that many people were taking photos of it. "It is huge," she said in Inuktitut.
Posted 7 May 2012; 5:09:58 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, May12
Halibut pierced with mysterious ’projectile parasite’
(ScienceNordic, 7 April 2012) -- The halibut is a popular delicacy among seafood lovers. But perhaps the pretty slices and the fine texture of this fish shouldn’t be taken for granted in the future. During filleting work, Greenlandic fishermen recently noticed that a specimen of Greenland halibut was full of strange cavities and holes that resemble shot wounds. The mysteriously infected fish was sent to the Laboratory of Aquatic Pathobiology at the University of Copenhagen, where researchers examined the holes in detail. They discovered that the Greenland halibut had been infected with a hitherto unknown parasite, which creates circular holes in the fish muscle. “At first glance it was impossible to see why the holes had appeared,” says Professor Kurt Buchmann, of the Laboratory of Aquatic Pathobiology at the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology at the University of Copenhagen, who headed the study. “But when I took a closer look through a microscope, I could see that the holes actually consisted of cartilage containing millions of tiny parasites of a previously unknown type. According to the professor, the holes emerged as a result of the parasites attacking cartilage elements in the fish’s skeleton. The cartilage reacts to the infection by swelling dramatically and transforming into long, circular cylinders that go straight through the fish’s musculature and make it appear riddled. ... The parasite has not been described before, neither by fish researchers nor parasite researchers. But its shape reveals that it is of the type Myxobulus – a parasite that’s characterised by being very small and rounded. Since Myxobulus hasn’t previously been observed in the halibut, the researchers knew they were dealing with a new species within Myxobulus. “Detailed DNA analyses also revealed that the newly-discovered projectile parasite was not present in the gene bank for parasites. Moreover, it differed greatly from other known types of parasites.” Although the projectile parasite has hitherto been completely unknown, it is not a newcomer. ”It has probably existed for millions of years – it’s just not been discovered by scientists until now.” Although the parasite makes the delicate fish flesh appear a bit less appetising, Buchmann stresses that it poses no threats to humans.
Posted 7 April 2012; 10:57:24 AM. Permalink
Tagged: April12, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Environment, Fisheries, Greenland
UNESCO supports Yakutia's Arctic projects
(Voice of Russia, 28 March 2012) -- The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has endorsed projects for a permafrost seedbank in Yakutia and research into the impact of global climate change on Arctic nature in that part of Siberia. Developed by local specialists and presented at the UNESCO Paris headquarters earlier this week, the projects will be part of the UNESCO-sponsored global warming assessment monitoring. Here is what Chairman of Yakutia’s Innovative Policy Committee Dmitry Safonov told reporters: "The UNESCO is preparing a large-scale program it plans to launch in 2013. It will focus on climate change and related scientific aspects such as the degradation of permafrost, the productivity of biosystems and the environmental and even humanitarian components, in other words, the effects of climate change on society, on people inhabiting certain territories." The Arctic is a region where climate change has been the most dramatic, which can best be seen in Yakutia. Degrading permafrost causes a rapid decrease of landmass. A research station will be built on the island of Samoilovsky in the Lena delta, where complex studies in various fields will be carried out, said Dmitry Safonov: "These include natural processes, nature management in the Arctic and the dynamics of the coastal and deep-sea permafrost in the eastern Arctic. In the geological bloc, it’s seismotectonics and paleogeography of Arctic Siberia. And there will also be a humanitarian bloc studying of the cultural and historical heritage. The Arctic boasts many interesting sites telling of famous explorers and expeditions of the great Arctic exploration era." Unlike most of the existing world seedbanks, the future cryo-repository in Yakut permafrost won’t need refrigerators to maintain temperatures at the required level, nor will it need electricity to power the equipment. Even compared to the European Union cryo-repository built on Spitsbergen in natural conditions, it will have significant advantages, says Professor of the Novosibirsk Institute of Cytology and Genetics Nikolai Goncharov. "If temperatures rise 5 degrees, the ice on Spitsbergen will melt and the EU cryo-repository will have to use refrigerators. For this to happen in Yakutia, a 20 degree warming is needed. The thick layer of permafrost is an eternal and ecologically clean system resistant to cataclysms."
Posted 2 April 2012; 4:08:25 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Far East Russia, Flora and Fauna, Infrastructure, transportation, Russia
Murmansk establishes new national park
(Atle Staalesen/BarentsObserver, 23 March 2012) -- The establishment of a national park is a first step of a comprehensive plan to protect the Khibiny mountains, a regional official says. According to Aleksey Smirnov, the territories of a so-called nature park will be defined in the course of 2012. Later, the area will be turned into a national park, the representative of the regional Duma Committee on Industrial Development and Environment says. The status as national park will facilitate the efficient protection of the Khibiny eco-system, Smirnov maintains. As previously reported, the Khibiny mountains are part of the federal protection plans of the Ministry of Natural Resources until year 2020. The establishment of the Khibiny natural park is a key component in the regional nature protection plan, which was adopted in December 2011. The park is to be fully established by 2015, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reports. The Khibiny mountains are under increasing pressure both from expanding industrial activities and tourism. While big industrial companies with great appetite look at the hugely rich metal and mineral reserves of the area, the tourism industry attract increasing number of tourists.
Posted 25 March 2012; 9:06:44 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Environment, March12, Northwest Russia, Russia
Increase in Arctic shipping poses risk to marine mammals
(Wildlife Conservation Society press release ᔥ redOrbit, 19 March 2012) -- A rapid increase in shipping in the formerly ice-choked waterways of the Arctic poses a significant increase in risk to the region’s marine mammals and the local communities that rely on them for food security and cultural identity, according to an Alaska Native groups and the Wildlife Conservation Society who convened at a recent workshop. The workshop—which ran from March 12-14—examined the potential impacts to the region’s wildlife and highlighted priorities for future management of shipping in the region. The meeting included participants from the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, Eskimo Walrus Commission, Alaska Beluga Whale Committee, Ice Seal Committee, Indigenous People’s Council for Marine Mammals, and the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Other participants included the University of Alaska, government agencies such as the U.S. Coast Guard, Arctic Research Commission, and the Marine Mammal Commission, and regional Alaska Native groups such as Kawerak Inc., North Slope Borough, Northwest Alaska Borough, and Association of Village Council Presidents. At issue is the effect of climate change on Arctic waters, which over the last few decades have become increasingly ice-free during the summer and fall. The lengthening of the open-water season has led to new industrial developments, including oil and gas activities and a rising number of large maritime vessels transiting either the Northern Sea Route over the Russian Arctic from Europe, or the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic from the Atlantic. Whichever route is being used, the only gateway to the Pacific is through the Bering Strait—an important migratory pathway for marine mammals.
Posted 19 March 2012; 10:27:08 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Infrastructure, transportation, March12
First ever caribou count on Baffin Island begins
(CBC News, 16 March 2012) -- A major project is about to begin to count caribou on Baffin Island for the first time ever. Last minute logistics are still being worked out in an Iqaluit hotel room which is serving as a operations base. Baffin regional biologist Debbie Jenkins is leading the survey. "So this really is going to provide critical, fundamental, baseline information on this population or populations,” Jenkins said. “We think there's actually 3 different populations of barrengound caribou on the island" Helicopters will fly at low levels over the entire island, to try to get the most accurate count possible. The data could determine conservation measures, or restrict development in some areas. Local communities are involved with the survey in the hope it helps their hunters. Noah Mosesee is the chair of Pangnirtung's Hunters and Trappers organization. “We support the survey and are looking forward to working together with DFO's and wildlife department to find out how many caribou and the location where they have migrated to,” Mosesee said. “This is very important to us.” The helicopters are set to take off from Iqaluit as soon as the weather allows. They'll focus on South Baffin this year and North Baffin next year.
Posted 16 March 2012; 4:59:08 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, March12, Nunavut
Samples from Syrian seed bank sheltered in Arctic doomsday vault
(AP via Washington Post, 27 February 2012) -- STOCKHOLM - Chick peas, fava beans and other seeds from a facility in Syria are among the 25,000 new samples being deposited this week in an Arctic seed vault built to protect food crops from wars and natural disasters, officials said Tuesday. The latest additions mean that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault — a master backup to the world’s other seed banks — has now secured more than 740,000 samples since it opened in a remote Norwegian archipelago in 2008. That represents an estimated three-quarters of the biological diversity of the world’s major food crops, said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which maintains the vault with Norway’s government and the Nordic Genetic Resources Center. With the shipment from the Syria-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, almost its entire collection is now backed up in Svalbard, Fowler told The Associated Press. “I think the events unfolding in Syria obviously underline the importance of having safety duplication outside of a country,” he said, adding the facility had not been damaged in the military crackdown on an anti-government uprising. He noted that wars destroyed seed banks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another one in Egypt was looted during last year’s uprising. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault — sometimes referred to as a doomsday vault — is designed to withstand global warming, earthquakes and even nuclear strikes.
Posted 27 February 2012; 11:36:17 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, February12, International, Norway, Svalbard
Canada's Southampton Island caribou at risk of being wiped out
(CBC News via Eye on the Arctic, 27 January 2012) -- The caribou herd on Southampton Island, which was once wiped out in the 1950s, may face extinction once again. Mitch Campbell, a wildlife biologist with the Government of Nunavut, a territory in Canada's eastern Arctic, says disease and overhunting are threatening the herd on the island at the mouth of Hudson Bay. He said a reproductive disease called brucellosis infected the island herd in 2000. As a result, pregnancy rates have dropped to about 30 per cent from 80 per cent, he said. Now social media like Facebook and cheap shipping rates from the airlines for country food are helping people in Nunavut communities like Iqaluit, where caribou is scarce, order meat from hunters in the Southhampton Island Inuit community of Coral Harbour, putting more stress on the herd. The herd on Southampton Island was hunted to extinction in the 1950s, and was re-established when 50 animals were transplanted there in 1968. "They've gone down from a high of 30,000 in 1997 to what we surveyed this last June which was about 7,500 animals," said Campbell. Campbell said more than 1,500 caribou had been exported this winter, which is higher than the birth rate, and that is only halfway through the season. "We believe that if this isn't stopped, this is an unsustainable harvest and probably will cause the population to be devastated within the next three years or so," he said. "One of the only ways that we will be able to control the harvest is by applying a total allowable harvest." Campbell said efforts to meet with the Coral Harbour Hunters and Trappers Organization have been unsuccessful. No one from the organization was available to speak with CBC.
Posted 30 January 2012; 12:41:02 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Environment, January12
Eider duck population declining in Arctic as polar bears devour eggs
(Anita Li/Toronto Star, 25 January 2012) -- An Arctic duck is at risk because polar bears have developed a newfound appetite for their eggs, scientists say. The eider populations in Nunavut and Nunavik, Que., are declining partly because the bears have been eating more of their eggs, which are laid on the southern coasts of Baffin Island and Southampton Island. “The bears were essentially eating every single egg on the island(s),” said Samuel Iverson, a field researcher with Environment Canada. “We are seeing just major nest depredation.” Over the past three decades, climate change has caused sea ice to disappear, making it more difficult for polar bears to hunt for seals, their primary prey. To compensate, the bears have been raiding eider nests for food. “These bears might be energy-deficient and more willing to consume resources, which before, weren’t very important to them, but now are piquing the bears’ interest in a way that they haven’t in the past,” he said. “The number of colonies where we saw this happening was much higher than anybody has ever recorded before.” But eating a diet of eggs isn’t enough to sustain the polar bear population in the long-term, Iverson added.
Posted 26 January 2012; 6:30:40 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, Conservation and wildlife, January12, Research
Russian Arctic to be made tourist attraction
(TASS via Voice of Russia, 20 January 2012) -- A tourist zone will be created on the premises of the Russian Arctic National Park in the north of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago and on the islands of Franz Josef Land. According to local officials, the construction of helicopter pads and harbors to receive cruise vessels will begin this summer. Former polar stations and deserted military bases will be transformed into tourist centers and virgin territories will be open only for research. The Russian Arctic, the northernmost nature reserve in Eurasia, is home to the biggest colonies of birds and rookeries in the Northern Hemisphere. It is populated by polar bears, Greenland whales, white seagulls and other Red Book species.
Posted 24 January 2012; 1:50:24 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, January12, Russia, Tourism
Polar bears turn cannibalistic as climate change depletes arctic food supply
(Rheana Murray / New York Daily News, 11 January 2012) -- Dwindling Arctic Sea ice is cutting off polar bears’ food supply, forcing the starving animals to devour their own kind. While cannibalism among polar bears isn’t unheard of, experts say the behavior is becoming increasingly common. “There are increasing numbers of observations of it occurring,” photojournalist Jenny Ross told BBC News. “Particularly on land where polar bears are trapped ashore, completely food-deprived for extended periods of time due to the loss of sea ice as a result of climate change.” Ross explained how the higher temperatures melt ice more quickly, leaving the bears less time to fuel up on ice-dependent seals, the animals’ main source of food. “Weights of adults are decreasing, litters are smaller, fewer young bears are surviving, and the overall population size is shrinking,” she said. Ross, whose research was published in the January 2012 edition of
Posted 12 January 2012; 10:17:24 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, Conservation and wildlife, Disasters, etc., January12, Norway, Svalbard
Lack of sea ice could be causing more seal deaths, say researchers
(Canadian Press via CTV, 4 January 2012) -- HALIFAX - A new scientific study suggests harp seals in the North Atlantic are dying at high rates because of warming waters and a steady decline of sea ice in their traditional breeding grounds. The research by scientists at Duke University in North Carolina tracked the decrease of sea ice due to global warming and the mortality of harp seals from 1992 to 2010. David Johnston, a marine scientist who co-wrote the report, said it's the first study to show that seasonal ice cover in the four seal breeding areas of North America has receded by as much as six per cent per decade. "There has been a string of light ice years recently and we're starting to be concerned that if ice continues to decline, this might have longer-term effects on the harp seal population," Johnston said from his office in Beaufort, N.C. "I'm concerned that these animals are in for a tough road with what we're seeing with climate change." The authors warned that they could see the disappearance of a year's entire seal pup herd due to a lack of ice, where females traditionally go to give birth every February and March. Pups usually drown if born in the water or on thin, unstable ice. The study was funded by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which has lobbied against the annual Canadian seal hunt. Johnston said the participation of the animal-rights group didn't affect the objectivity of the report, which was peer-reviewed.
Posted 5 January 2012; 11:23:32 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, Conservation and wildlife, Environment and Landscape, Flora and Fauna, January12
Scientists still unsure what's causing Arctic Alaska ringed seals to die
(Alex de Marban/Alaska Dispatch, 20 December 2011) -- A federal agency said Tuesday that tests indicate a virus did not cause the deaths or illnesses of more than 100 Arctic Alaska ringed seals found with skin sores, ulcers on internal organs, patchy hair loss and other symptoms. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists announced via press release that despite numerous tests, it still does not know what's causing the illness. Deaths in the Arctic and Bering Strait region of Alaska have been declared an unusual mortality event, a status that provides additional resources to investigate the cause, including access to more expertise and a contingency fund, the agency said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering making a similar declaration for Pacific walrus in Alaska. "Since mid-July, more than 60 dead and 75 diseased seals, most of them ringed seals, have been reported in Alaska, with reports continuing to come in," the NOAA press release said. "During their fall survey, scientists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also identified diseased and dead walruses at the annual mass haul-out at Point Lay (in Northwest Alaska)." The disease has caused skin ulcers that usually appear on the animals' hind flippers or face. Some of the sick animals have had difficulty breathing and appear lethargic. Also, some necropsies have revealed "fluid in the lungs, white spots on the liver, and abnormal brain growths." Scientists suspect that those internal wounds may be caused by bacteria entering the animals' bodies through the ulcers, said Stephen Raverty, a veterinary pathologist and working group member of the Provincial Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in British Columbia. Testing continues for causes related to "immune system-related diseases, fungi, man-made and bio-toxins, radiation exposure, contaminants, and stressors related to sea ice change," the agency reported.
Posted 21 December 2011; 2:26:13 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December11, Environment and Landscape
Will Russian icebreaker make it in time to save 100 whales trapped in Arctic ice?
(Mia Bennett/Eye on the Arctic via Alaska Dispatch, 15 December 2011) -- Off the east coast of the Russian Chukotka peninsula, winter has come hard and fast, freezing parts of the Bering Strait. Fifteen miles south of the village of Yanrakynnot in the Sinyavinsky Strait, 100 beluga whales are trapped in the ice. Hunters have reported that they are in two polynyas and are currently able to breathe freely. However, food and clean water will soon run out, and the whales will likely die of exhaustion or starvation if the ice is not soon broken up. Roman Kopin, governor of Chukotka, has written letters to the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Emergency Situations requesting an icebreaker to aid the beluga whales. He suggested the marine rescue boat Ruby as a possible source of salvation for the whales. The icebreaker is a couple of days away, busy helping the Korean cargo ship Oriental Angel, which has run aground on the Gulf of Anadyr. All of its 90 crew members managed to escape on inflatable boats, but there are still 1,100 gallons of flammable liquid onboard the ship. Meanwhile, Chukotka authorities are busy trying to find out how far away the nearest source of clean water is from the whales.
Posted 16 December 2011; 3:00:01 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December11, Infrastructure, transportation, Russia
Arctic refuge's 'ANWR' tag rankles conservationists
(Phil Taylor/Environment and Energy Publishing, 22 November 2011) -- First comes the abbreviation. Then comes the drilling. That's the fear of environmental groups fighting to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas drilling and the reason they are quietly waging a battle over how the 19-million-acre area is branded to the public. As the House moves closer to passing a bill that would open a portion of the refuge's coastal plain to drilling, environmentalists and their Democratic allies warn the term "ANWR" fails to convey a place rich in wildlife, cultural values and wilderness. "ANWR" -- pronounced ANN-warr -- connotes a landscape of mineral wealth ripe for development, some refuge advocates argue. Groups also oppose calling the refuge's 1.6-million-acre coastal plain the "1002 area," a nickname that came from Section 10, Paragraph 2 of the 1980 bill that named the refuge and drew its modern boundaries. "It's the bane of my existence," said Emilie Surrusco, communications director for the Alaska Wilderness League, a Washington, D.C.-based group that is fighting plans to drill in the refuge and offshore in the Arctic Ocean. ... An aide to Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who has sponsored a bill to designate the coastal plain as wilderness, corrects reporters who use the acronym over the phone. Conservationists, too, have excused themselves when accidentally using the term in front of like-minded peers. Even lawmakers who oppose drilling in the refuge continue to sometimes call it by its acronym, said Cindy Shogan, executive director at the wilderness league. "We've definitely failed in convincing members to not call it ANWR," she said. "ANWR is what the oil industry wants you to think of it." ... Doug Brinkley, a historian from Rice University, also accused the oil lobby Friday of using the acronym to win public support for drilling. "Do you want to drill ANWR? Yes," he told the House Natural Resources Committee at a hearing titled "ANWR: Jobs, Energy and Deficit Reduction." "Do you want to molest [President] Eisenhower's great wildlife reserve? No." But while major oil companies did lobby on ANWR in the 1990s, companies began pulling out of the debate at least 10 years ago when the issue started becoming politically caustic, said Adrian Herrera, who manages Arctic Power, an Anchorage-based lobbying firm with a Washington office funded primarily by the state of Alaska.
Posted 24 November 2011; 1:34:15 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Communications and media, Conservation and wildlife, November11
(CBC News, 11 November 2011) -- Ptarmigan populations could be in trouble in Yukon. The population cycle of the birds in the territory has so far been predictable, but Yukon biologist Dave Mossop says it looks like the last cycle didn't happen. "The 10-year cycle that's followed by all of the grouse, including ptarmigan, as well as hares and some others, their predators, has been tracked for well over 100 years in North America and it looks like this last cycle basically didn't happen,” said Mossop. “It doesn't look like things are going extinct. It's just that we lost that peak and it could be very troubling." Mossop says scientists don't know what's causing the change, but he says they're seeing it across a large area of the North.
Posted 11 November 2011; 3:21:57 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, North America, November11, Yukon
Arctic sea ice 'to melt by 2015'
(Nick Collins/Telegraph, 8 November 2011) -- Prof Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, said the ice that forms over the Arctic sea is shrinking so rapidly that it could vanish altogether in as little as four years' time. Although it would reappear again every winter, its absence during the peak of summer would rob polar bears of their summer hunting ground and threaten them with extinction. The mass of ice between northern Russia, Canada and Greenland waxes and wanes with the seasons, currently reaching a minimum size of about four million square kilometres. Most models, including the latest estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), track the decline in the area covered by ice in recent years to predict the rate at which it will deteriorate. But citing research compiled by Dr Wieslaw Maslowski, a researcher from the American Naval Postgraduate School, last year Prof Wadhams said such predictions failed to spot how quickly climate change is causing the ice to thin. While the IPCC suggests the ice will remain in place until the 2030s, Dr Maslowski's study also takes into account the rate at which it is thinning and calculates that it will vanish much more quickly. Dr Maslowski's model, along with his claim that the Arctic sea ice is in a "death spiral", were controversial but Prof Wadhams, a leading authority on the polar regions, said the calculations had him "pretty much persuaded." Prof Wadhams said: "His [model] is the most extreme but he is also the best modeller around. "It is really showing the fall-off in ice volume is so fast that it is going to bring us to zero very quickly. 2015 is a very serious prediction and I think I am pretty much persuaded that that's when it will happen."
Posted 9 November 2011; 11:49:51 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, Conservation and wildlife, November11
For Inuits dealing with climate change, science can be slow and bumbling
(Carol Berry/Indian Country, 25 October 2011) -- An Inuk woman practicing a traditional craft finds the sealskin she’s working with doesn’t have the nice fur of times past and it has rotten patches that tear easily. Her husband finds that hunting seals is more difficult than in the past because the formerly stable edge of an ice-floe has broken off and fewer seals are there. He carries a gun as protection against increasing numbers of polar bears. They are among Native people in the circumpolar North who experience climate change in their everyday lives and for whom conventional science, despite its ability to describe the change, sometimes has been unhelpful. One Inuk hunter accuses wildlife biologists of “meddling [that] is causing problems” by putting radio collars on bears so they “can’t hunt properly” or using helicopters that destroy animals’ hearing. Carcasses of over-drugged bears have been found, he says, and wildlife policies “make our lives difficult” even though “we know our wildlife intimately.” His and others’ experiences are told in Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change, the last film in the Eighth Annual Indigenous Film & Arts Festival, presented Oct. 12-16 by the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management (IIIRM), Denver. The festival’s theme was “Adaptation: Finding Balance in a Changing World.” Mervyn Tano, IIIRM president, said both ground-level science and science policy are needed to “cut through some of the conventional wisdom” to discern, for example, what the role should be of wildlife biologists crafting wildlife regulations. Government inflexibility in wildlife rules is difficult to change, one scientist found after doing research in the remote northwest interior of Alaska. Shannon McNeeley, with the Integrated Science Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research, conducted a post-film panel with Tano and talked about changes in moose behavior patterns with climate change. ... That change is indeed occurring is documented by the film’s co-director, Zacharias Kunuk, who interviewed elders on Baffin Island, located in the eastern part of Nunavut in the Canadian polar North. Environmental change “is dangerous to people worldwide—it affects both Inuit and Southerners,” said Mary Simon, Inuk, Canada’s first Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs. “These big money-makers in the world are all contributors to climate change.”
Posted 1 November 2011; 10:05:13 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, Conservation and wildlife, Indigenous Issues, October11, Research
Mysterious outbreak killing Arctic Alaska ringed seals
(Alex DeMarban/Alaska Dispatch, 13 October 2011) -- A mysterious and potentially widespread disease is thought to have contributed to the deaths of dozens of ringed seals along Alaska's Arctic coast. Scores more are sickened, some so ill that skin lesions bleed when touched. The animals are an important subsistence food for Alaska Native hunters and their families, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed listing them as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. In July, biologists with the North Slope Borough's Department of Wildlife Management began receiving reports of ringed seals hauled out on beaches, an unusual behavior since the animals usually prefer the water or ice. Since then, they've found at least 100 seals with telltale mangy hair and skin lesions, mostly while traveling by four-wheeler along 30 miles of Beaufort and Chukchi sea coastline outside Barrow. At least 46 of those seals have been found dead, and experts aren't sure if the disease is killing them or if other infections and polar bears are proving fatal once the seals become feeble. "Right now we're leaning toward it being a virus, and that could weaken their immune system," said Jason Herreman, a borough wildlife biologist studying seals and polar bears. The Department of Wildlife Management has never documented a similar outbreak in the North Slope region, Herreman said. Scientists don't know the scope of the problem because since ringed seals are difficult to track and haven't been counted for decades. Hundreds of thousands are thought to live in the region.
Posted 14 October 2011; 11:12:30 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, North Pacific, October11
Federal polar bear scientist back on the job
(Kim Murphy/Los Angeles Times, 26 August 2011) -- The arcane world of polar bear research was rocked recently by the suspension of a federal scientist in Alaska whose research on polar bear drownings in the Arctic raised major concerns about climate change. But the researcher was reinstated to his job Friday — and an inquiry has been launched to determine whether the Obama administration tried to interfere with his research. The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement confirmed that Charles Monnett — whose suspension in July sparked an outcry among fellow scientists, climate change researchers and opponents of offshore oil and gas drilling — has been recalled from six weeks of administrative leave. But he won't be resuming his previous work managing research contracts, the bureau said. Agency officials have sought to downplay the incident, saying Monnett was suspended for improperly administering contracts, not for documenting dead polar bears. "There is no truth to any suggestion that the return to work is in any way tied to … allegations against bureau leadership," said Melissa Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the bureau, which oversees oil and gas development in many of the same Arctic regions where polar bears are seeing their icy habitat shrink.
Posted 12 September 2011; 10:44:21 PM. Permalink
Tagged: August11, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, People, Research, United States
Federal agency tries to write polar bear recovery plan
(Dan Joling/Anchorage Daily News, 29 August 2011) -- In a windowless convention center room more than a thousand miles from polar bears roaming on sea ice, marine mammal biologists gathered last week in Anchorage to work on a recovery plan for the Arctic Ocean's most famous fauna.The Interior Department three years ago listed polar bears as threatened because of the alarming rate at which sea ice, their primary habitat, is projected to disappear each summer. In the same announcement, then-Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said endangered species law would not be used to set climate policy or limit greenhouse gas emissions, a rule affirmed by the Obama administration. The determination that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will not be allowed to address the culprit for warming -- greenhouse gases emitted worldwide -- means the recovery plan will be like no other since the Endangered Species Act was signed by President Nixon 38 years ago. "The best we can do is work with our domestic and international partners to address symptoms of climate change," said wildlife biologist James Wilder, who heads the recovery plan effort, on Thursday. ... Rosa Meehan, the USFWS marine mammals manager in Alaska, said recovery plans traditionally have dealt with a very specific threat that causes habitat loss. "We don't have that," she said. "We're dealing with a projected change and it's not a directed feature, it's this climate change that all of us ... is in some way contributing to." Figuring out how much greenhouse gas melts what amount of ice, and how that equates to an effect on a particular bear, would require near impossible connections, she said. "At the end of the day, you can't say, 'Well, someone driving an SUV down in California on the highways is going to make polar bear cub 'A' live two years less," Meehan said. "There's just too many huge steps in there to make those direct connections." So instead, wildlife managers are focusing on what they can control, such as assessing the condition of polar bear populations through habitat and demographic reviews, which present their own challenges.
Posted 29 August 2011; 2:42:41 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conferences, Conservation and wildlife, United States
Caribou populations back from the brink
(CBC News, 22 August 2011) -- Two years ago scientists feared northern caribou were the new cod — once-teeming stocks of wildlife that had sustained entire cultures but were at the edge of collapse. Now, as scientists from around the world gather in Yellowknife to compare notes, biologists are beginning to see signs that the worst is past for an animal so central to the Canadian imagination it's on the back of the quarter. "Our situation overall is looking a lot brighter than it did two years ago," said Jan Adamczewski, a biologist with the government of the Northwest Territories. "Those of us concerned with management of these caribou herds are breathing just a little bit easier." About 230 scientists from around the circumpolar world are meeting this week at a conference held once every four years on Arctic ungulates. They'll talk about muskox and reindeer, too, but the recent changes in caribou are sure to be a large part of the agenda. In 2009, nine of Canada's 11 northern herds were considered to be in decline. Biologists estimated the Bathurst population on the central barrens had fallen to 32,000 from more than 120,000 in 2006. That was a 75 per cent implosion, a loss of nearly 90,000 animals in only three years. But since then both the Cape Bathurst and Bluenose East herds have stabilized. The Bluenose East herd is back up over 100,000 animals. Yukon's Porcupine herd is approaching 1980s levels. And preliminary surveys in 2010 and 2011 of the Bathurst herd hint the free fall may have bottomed out. "It kind of looks like maybe we've turned the corner there," said Adamczewski. "There's a very slight indication that the herd may be starting to increase."
Posted 26 August 2011; 3:54:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: August11, Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Research
Melting Arctic sea ice drives walruses onto land
(ENN, 23 August 2011) -- Fast-melting Arctic sea ice appears to be pushing walruses to haul themselves out onto land, and many are moving around the area where oil leases have been sold, the U.S. Geological Survey reports. Walruses are accomplished divers and frequently plunge hundreds of feet (meters) to the bottom of the continental shelf to feed. But they use sea ice as platforms to give birth, nurse their young and elude predators, and when sea ice is scarce or non-existent, as it has been this summer, they come up on land. Last September, the loss of sea ice caused an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 walruses to venture onto land, and as sea ice melts reached a record last month, U.S. government scientists are working with Alaskan villagers to put radio transmitters on some of the hauled-out walruses to track their movements around the Chukchi Sea. "The ice is very widely dispersed and there is little of it left over the continental shelf," researcher Chad Jay of the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement on Wednesday. "Based on our tracking data, the walruses appear to be spreading out and spending quite a bit of time looking for sea ice." The loss of sea ice puts Pacific walruses at risk, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but other, higher-priority species will get attention first. In February, the wildlife service listed Pacific walruses as candidates for protection, though not protection itself.
Posted 23 August 2011; 7:22:45 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, August11, Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna
Arctic Wildlife Refuge squeezed between developers, tourists
(ENS, 15 August 2011) -- ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The designation of Wild and Scenic Rivers and a new National Wilderness Area are central to a new 15-year draft conservation management plan for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday. The Obama administration's plan comes as the State of Alaska is preparing to open millions of acres of state-owned arctic lands on the western border of the refuge to an oil and gas lease sale. The Fish and Wildlife Service's draft Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Environmental Impact Statement contains six alternatives for long-term management. One alternative recommends that Congress designate the Hulahula, Kongakut, and Marsh Fork Canning rivers as Wild and Scenic Rivers. ... But, the plan says, refuge staff have received visitor reports of group crowding at boat launches; user conflicts; excessive over-flights; fire rings, tent rings, and human waste accumulations at concentrated access points and popular camp areas; hardening or impairment of fragile riparian and tundra habitats; and increased footprint of aircraft landing areas. or further protection, the Service is considering designating three areas, including the Arctic Refuge coastal plain and the Brooks Range of mountains, for inclusion within the National Wilderness Preservation System. None of the proposals under consideration would change existing protocols for subsistence harvest. To get public opinion on the six options, the agency is conducting a series of public meetings and reviewing public comments before finalizing the plan, which will ultimately identify a preferred alternative.
Posted 21 August 2011; 9:21:52 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, August11, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Environment and Landscape, North America
Polar bear kills British teen in Arctic expedition
(Fox News, 5 August 2011) -- VON POSTBREEN, Norway - A polar bear attacked a group of British students camping on a remote Arctic glacier as part of a high-end adventure holiday, killing a 17-year-old boy and injuring four other young people Friday before a trip member fatally shot the bear. Two were hospitalized with severe injuries, according to the British Schools Exploring Society, the organizer of the trip. The attack took place on the Svalbard archipelago, which is home to about 2,400 people and 3,000 polar bears and attracts well-off and hardy tourists with stunning views of snow-covered mountains, fjords and glaciers. The British Schools Exploring Society is affiliated with Britain's Royal Geographic Society and has run expeditions for young people to remote and challenging corners of the globe for at least 75 years. Expedition members were spending three to five weeks in the Arctic, and had each paid 2,000 pounds (US$3,300) to 3,000 pounds (US$4,900) to join the trip, designed to mix science experiments with adventure. Participants were hunting for Arctic fossils and taking part in environmental experiments, including a project to install hydro and solar power systems. The group also was clearing beaches of tidal debris. On Friday morning, some of the youths were camping on Spitsbergen Island, the largest in the Svalbard archipelago, and a place where researchers say there is not much food available for polar bears during the summer. The bear attacked a group of 13 people in the early morning, leaving them with moderate to severe wounds that included head injuries, officials said. One of the campers shot the bear, said Liv Asta Oedegaard, a spokeswoman for the Svalbard governor's office. The injured were evacuated by helicopter to Tromsoe, the nearest city on the Norwegian mainland. "With great sadness the British Schools Exploring Society confirms the tragic death this morning of one of the members of its expedition in Svalbard," said Edward Watson, chairman of the British Schools Exploring Society. He named the teen as Horatio Chapple, who hoped to study medicine.
Posted 8 August 2011; 5:35:52 PM. Permalink
Tagged: August11, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Disasters, etc., Europe, Norway, Svalbard
Polar bear cubs face death as Arctic ice melts
(WWF Statement via RedOrbit, 20 July 2011) -- As their icy Arctic habitat melts, polar bear mothers and their cubs are forced to swim long distances, which expose the cubs to higher mortality rates than cubs who do not have to swim as far, a study shows. “Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears’ feet, forcing some to swim longer distances to find food and habitat,” co-author of the study, Geoff York of World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told Reuters. Polar bears are not naturally aquatic creatures. They rely on ice or land to hunt, feed and give birth, reports Reuters. Previous studies found that individual animals have had to swim hundreds of miles to reach ice platforms or land, but this is the first to show how these long swims expose polar bear cubs to greater risks. According to York, the current study is the first time these long swims have been quantitatively measured. Researchers used satellites to track 68 polar bear females equipped with GPS collars over a six year span, from 2004 to 2009. Data was gathered to find occasions when these bears swam for more than 30 miles at a time. Over those six years, there were 50 long-distance swims involving 20 bears, ranging up to 426 miles in distance, and with duration of about 12.7 days, according to the study presented at the International Bear Association Conference in Ottawa, Canada this week. At the start of the study when the bears were equipped with the GPS collars, 11 of the bears that swam long distances had young cubs. Five of the polar bear mothers lost their babies during the long swim, which represents a 45% mortality rate, report the study. For cubs that didn’t have to swim long distances with their mothers, the mortality rate was 18%.
Posted 24 July 2011; 4:10:36 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, July11, Research
Whale census: Bowhead spottings near all-time high
(Jake Neher/ The Arctic Sounder, 16 July 2011) -- Biologist Craig George has an unusual job. He counts whales. It's actually a very complex, dangerous, and important job. Under an international treaty, the United States is a member of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), and must conduct a census every ten years to keep track of the size and trends of the stock of whales being harvested by hunters. That's easier said than done. But after 30 years doing it, George seems to have developed a fairly workable process. It's a three-plus mile snow machine ride out on the sea ice to get to where researchers are busy counting whales. ... As of May 30th, they had spotted nearly 3,400 bowheads. They also possibly saw up to 630 additional whales, but weren't able to determine if they were duplicate sightings. George says that's very close to the all-time record for whales seen in a year. That's good news for researchers, the North Slope Borough, and native whalers, because the census actually failed two years in a row in 2009 and 2010. The last successful count was back in 2001. In addition to the ice-based count out on the perches, they teamed up with the National Marine Fisheries Service to successfully pulled-off an aerial photo survey of the bowhead migration this year. They also placed several audio recording devices in the water to get acoustic data of the migration to help calculate missed whale correction factors. George says all these things will make for a better confidence-level in the final survey estimates.
Posted 17 July 2011; 11:10:04 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, July11, North Pacific, Research
U.S.-Russia commission to meet on Chukchi polar bears
(Dan Joling/Anchorage Daily News, 16 July 2011) -- Polar bears in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast face an uncertain future because of the warming climate. A U.S. and Russia commission aims to address short-term threats.The four-person commission, made up of national and Native representatives from each country, will meet for three days in Moscow starting July 27 to discuss subsistence hunting and other issues for the polar bear population shared by the two countries in the waters north and just south of the Bering Strait. The commission last year set a harvest limit of 58 split between the two sides. A main topic for the meeting will be how each side will make that work, said Eric Regehr, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife service biologist who serves on the commission's science advisory board. U.S. commissioners will present a draft harvest management plan proposed to begin the quota Jan. 1, 2013. The commission was created by a treaty signed in 2000 and is significant for representing co-management across countries and cultures, said Rosa Meehan, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's marine mammals manager in Alaska. "It's the first effort in Russia that formally recognizes the Native people of Russia and involves them in a governmental process," she said.
Posted 17 July 2011; 10:53:12 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Russia
Ancestry of polar bears traced to Ireland
(Penn State University press release, 7 July 2011) -- An international team of scientists has discovered that the female ancestor of all living polar bears was a brown bear that lived in the vicinity of present-day Britain and Ireland just prior to the peak of the last ice age, 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. Beth Shapiro, the Shaffer associate professor of biology at Penn State and one of the team's leaders, explained that climate changes affecting the North Atlantic ice sheet probably gave rise to periodic overlaps in bear habitats. These overlaps then led to hybridization, or interbreeding -- an event that caused maternal DNA from brown bears to be introduced into polar bears. The research, which is led by Penn State's Shapiro and Daniel Bradley of Trinity College Dublin, is expected to help guide future conservation efforts for polar bears, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The results of the study were published on July 7 in the journal Current Biology. Polar and brown bears are vastly different species in terms of body size ... and many other physical features. Behaviorally, they are also quite distinct.... "Despite these differences, we know that the two species have interbred ... during the last 100,000 years," Shapiro said. "Most importantly, previous research has indicated that the brown bear contributed genetic material to the polar bear's mitochondrial lineage -- the maternal part of the genome, or the DNA that is passed exclusively from mothers to offspring. But, until now, it was unclear just when modern polar bears acquired their mitochondrial genome in its present form." Although previous researchers had suggested that the ancient female ancestor of modern polar bears lived on the ABC Islands -- the Alaskan islands of Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof -- only 14,000 years ago, Shapiro's team found evidence of a much earlier hybridization event. Because of this event, the modern polar bear's mitochondrial DNA probably underwent fixation -- a drastic reduction in genetic variation and a transition to a state in which the entire gene pool includes only one form of a particular gene. After performing genetic analyses of 242 brown-bear and polar-bear mitochondrial lineages sampled throughout the last 120,000 years and across multiple geographic ranges, Shapiro's team found that the fixation of the mitochondrial genome likely occurred during or just before the peak of the last ice age, possibly as early as 50,000 years ago, near present-day Ireland. Shapiro noted that the specific population of brown bears that shared its maternal DNA with polar bears has been extinct for roughly 9,000 years. However, her data offer clear genetic evidence that the two species were in contact long before the brown bear's disappearance from the British Isles.
Posted 15 July 2011; 12:20:17 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, July11, Research
A century-old green fishery decimated by government interference
(Yukon River Gold LLC press release, 12 July 2011) -- KALTAG, ALASKA - Yukon River Gold LLC has announced the suspension of fish buying operations this summer in the remote Alaskan village of Kaltag, pending review for a permanent closure of the facility. This closure results in elimination of 70 jobs this summer, in this remote village of less than 800 people, where jobs are scarce. The closure is the result of inadequate supplies of harvest opportunities to supply the plant with salmon. With record numbers of Keta salmon returning, this plant stands idle while the fish swim by. The primary problem facing Yukon fisheries, is how to separate the abundant Keta salmon, from the Chinook salmon that are needed for conservation. How to harvest one, and not the other? Kaltag’s answer; harvest with fishwheels. Fishwheels are an old technology, that is being rediscovered wherever salmon return, because they are so environmentally friendly. Fishwheels are a revolving series of dip nets powered by the river, hence no energy needed. Fisheries scientists worldwide, utilize this technology to capture and release fish for research purposes. The salmon are carefully captured alive and returned to the river unharmed within seconds; guaranteeing a 100% subsistence priority for Chinook salmon. A perfect solution to the mixed salmon in the Yukon River. ... Kaltag cooperating with Alaskan authorities began using their fishwheels to release the Chinook salmon alive. ... As a consequence of this program, leading global magazine Seafood International has named the tiny Alaskan village of Kaltag, as one of the world’s 11 greenest fisheries. Environmentally sensitive customers lined up to buy the product. Karlberg said “Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) notified us that we would not be able to harvest abundant Keta salmon, until all the Chinook salmon have left the area. These fish travel together, so that marked the end of the fishery for us with nothing to harvest. We pointed out that we had proven to ADFG that over the last two years we could harvest Keta salmon, without killing a single Chinook salmon. We asked; How do you close a fishery that does not kill Chinook salmon, … to save Chinook salmon? We simply do not know what the issue is. ... Historically there have been dozens of salmon processing plants on the Yukon. Last year there were two left. With today’s closure of the Kaltag plant, there is only one plant left standing, and it is struggling to survive. With no processing plants, there can be no fishing. These centuries’ old isolated communities will have been walled off from the very resource that the villages were specifically located to survive upon over centuries. ... Plant manager Doug Karlberg says, “Closing this plant was a painful decision. It simply did not have to happen. This closure was caused by politics, not science. Kaltag is a wonderful community, but it is economically challenged, isolated with a small voting population, and being asked to pay the ultimate price in order to save a species which it does not even harvest.”
Posted 13 July 2011; 12:17:35 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Communities, Conservation and wildlife, Economic issues, July11, United States
Ottawa wants polar bear added to SARA list
(Jane George/Nunatsiaq News, 13 July 2011) -- The federal environment department wants to add polar bears to Canada’s list of endangered species. On July 2 an Order of Parliament was filed in the Canada Gazette, asking for an amendment to the Species of Risk Act, which would see polar bears listed as a species “of special concern.” There’s now a 30 day comment period on the amendment. “The proposed Order is an important commitment regarding Polar Bears and their vulnerability,” reads an impact analysis statement on the Order. To gauge public support for the listing of polar bears, Environment Canada carried out public consultations between November 2008 and March 2010. “In the North, the majority of communities contacted were not in favour of listing the Polar Bear,” the impact analysis statement acknowledges. Meetings took place in 23 of 25 Nunavut communities and 793 people attended. Of the 119 comments received, the majority did not support listing the polar bear under SARA. The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, which, under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, can approve the designation of rare, threatened and endangered species in Nunavut, advised the Minister of the Environment that it would not support the proposed listing of the polar bear as a species of special concern. The Nunavik Marine Region Wildlife Board also decided against the listing of the polar bear. And last May, Nunavut’s environment Minister Dan Shewchuk reversed the Government of Nunavut’s previously-held position in favour of listing, following consultation with hunters and elders. Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. has said the listing creates an opening for animal welfare groups to try to influence Canada’s polar bear management. The move to list polar bears comes three years after the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada assessed the polar bear as a species of special concern. Under SARA, the listing of a species as special concern means a management plan must be prepared within three years to prevent the listed species from becoming endangered or threatened.
Posted 13 July 2011; 10:24:42 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, July11, Social Issues
Iceland’s sea bird stock 'in dismal shape'
(IceNews, 28 June 2011) -- The nesting season of many types of sea bird all around Iceland has been poor this year and there is an all-out puffin and Arctic tern collapse in progress to the south and west of the country. Ornithologists say the situation has not looked worse for many decades. Scientists have been travelling around Iceland in recent days and weeks, researching sea bird stocks and the status of their nesting. RUV reported at the weekend that extremely few Arctic tern nests were found on the Snaefellsnes peninsula, where thousands of the birds usually lay their eggs. A similarly worrying picture is emerging about the puffin stock and the situation is particularly bad on the Westman Islands and the south and west of the Icelandic mainland. Ornithologist Aevar Pedersen told RUV that the situation had been bad last year, but is even worse this year. The overall picture is pretty dismal, he said — adding that he has not seen a worse breeding season for many years, indeed decades. “Among sea birds it is generally extremely poor, and among waders it seems to be quite poor as well — at the very least they are nesting very late. We have been looking at snipes out west on Flatey island in Breidafjordur and there are only about 20 percent as many as there should be. On the other hand, it appears to be a good nesting season for small birds like wagtails and snow buntings,” Pedersen said. The nesting season among Arctic terns and puffins has simply failed to take place in large parts of Iceland. Both species mainly eat sand eels which have almost disappeared — especially in the seas to the south and west of Iceland. Puffins are still nesting in North Iceland, where they feed on capelin; but the lack of sand eels further south is causing Arctic tern and puffin breeding seasons to fail yet again. The most plausible explanation for the sand eels’ disappearance is the continued ocean warming around Iceland.
Posted 1 July 2011; 12:15:48 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Environment and Landscape, Flora and Fauna, Iceland, June11
Polar bears deserve Endangered Species Act protection, judge rules
(ENS, 30 June 2011) -- WASHINGTON, DC - A federal judge today upheld a 2008 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to protect polar bears under the Endangered Species Act because climate change is threatening their survival. The polar bear was the first species added to the Endangered Species List due solely to the threat from global warming. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan dismissed challenges to the listing brought by the state of Alaska under the leadership of then-Governor Sarah Palin, and hunting groups, who argued that the listing was unnecessary. They contended that the bear is protected by other laws and that the science does not allow prediction of what effects climate change will have on the species. Judge Sullivan ruled that the Service's decision to protect the bear due to the melting of the Arctic sea ice was well supported. Scientific studies show that, due to the rapid melting of its Arctic habitat, two-thirds of the world's polar bears, including all the bears in Alaska, are likely to become extinct within the next 40 years. Despite finding the evidence of the severity of the polar bear's plight "troubling," Judge Sullivan declined to raise the threat level of the species from threatened to endangered. "It is not this Court's role to determine, based on its independent assessment of the scientific evidence, whether the agency could have reached a different conclusion with regard to the listing of the polar bear," the judge wrote in his ruling. Instead, he wrote, the court's job is only to determine whether the Fish and Wildlife Service's process to reach its own decision was "rational." The plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the agency's determination "rises to the level or irrationality."
Posted 1 July 2011; 12:06:20 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, June11, Laws and legal
Airlifted Canadian bison sent to Russia to boost species' survival
(Randy Boswell/Postmedia News, 4 May 2011) -- Canadian wildlife officials have delivered a shipment of 30 wood bison from a national park in Alberta to a historic buffalo stomping ground in sub-Arctic Russia — part of a unique, intercontinental gift of natural heritage aimed at boosting the species' long-range chances of survival. The bison airlift, carried out in late March, was the second transplant of the Canadian beasts in the past five years to the Siberian republic of Sakha, where Russian biologists are trying to recreate a long-vanished ecosystem once dominated by the related steppe bison before its extinction about 10,000 years ago. The remarkable wildlife export — made possible with a heavy Russian transport aircraft that required special permission to land at the Edmonton airport — is a showcase project this year for Parks Canada, which is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its creation as an distinct branch of the federal government. ... The arrival of the Canadian animals is a "huge deal" for wildlife specialists in Sakha, said Shury, "because bison haven't been present in that part of the world for over 10,000 years." The first transfer of 30 bison in 2006 was successful, he said, but the additional animals are necessary to achieve enough genetic diversity for the Siberian herd to become self-sustaining. "Once they build up enough of a breeding population," Shury said, "they'd like to release bison into the wild and restore a large herbivore into that landscape that hasn't been there for a long, long time."
Posted 4 May 2011; 11:30:24 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, May11, Russia
Point Lay efforts to protect weary walruses honored by Fish and Wildlife
(The Arctic Sounder, 6 April 2011) -- At a community meeting on March 28, the Native Village of Point Lay was presented with an "Outstanding Partner" Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Region, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a written statement. Here's the rest of the release: The honor was conferred as part of the annual Regional Director's Excellence Awards, which recognize the work of FWS staff and partners across Alaska. Presented by Service Marine Mammal Management program biologist Jim MacCracken, the award cites the work done be residents of the village to protect walruses in September 2010. At that time, tens of thousands of migrating Pacific walruses hauled out on the Chukchi Sea barrier beach within sight of the small Inupiaq community of Pt. Lay Alaska. see a video of the gathering here. It was an event unprecedented in living human memory and soon became a worldwide media attraction. Residents of Point Lay community took the initiative to protect the resting walruses from disturbance that could have resulted in stampedes that can injure or kill young and weakened animals. Community leaders took an Incident Command approach to protecting the walruses. They issued a news release and walrus photographs to inquiring news media organizations, but also requested that media crews not travel to Point Lay. When media did arrive, the leaders participated in interviews and showed North Slope hospitality, while advising visitors on how to get the stories they needed without disturbing the animals. Point Lay has a distinguished history of working closely with wildlife scientists, especially on beluga and bowhead whales. In this instance the entire community also took the initiative to effectively demonstrate respect, and provide respite, for the thousands of weary Pacific walruses resting near the village. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Regional Director Geoff Haskett said, "Partners are at the heart of much of what we do as an agency, and this recognition appropriately honors the Native Village of Point Lay for taking the initiative to protect walrus during this almost unprecedented haul-out event."
Posted 6 April 2011; 3:19:32 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, April11, Circumpolar News, Communities, Conservation and wildlife, Prizes, awards and recognitions
Size of Western Arctic caribou herd revised downward
(Margaret Bauman/The Arctic Sounder, 24 March 2011) -- A continuing modest decline of Alaska's largest caribou herd is being carefully watched by state wildlife biologists, who see the animals as important not only for hunters, but the environment as a whole. "It has our attention," said Jim Dau, a biologist at Kotzebue for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. "We are not ignoring it. This is important not just for subsistence users, but for the whole ecology of the region." Dau said in an interview today that a couple of detailed health analyses conducted by ADF&G veterinarian Kimberly Beckman in Fairbanks concluded that the Western Arctic caribou herd is among the healthiest of the caribou herds in Alaska. There is no indication that disease is causing the decline, he said. A recent further analysis of aerial photos of a July 2009 Western Arctic caribou herd census had prompted state biologists to revise the population estimate down to 348,000 caribou in a continued modest decline. The previous estimate of 401,000 caribou indicated an increase in the herd over the 377,000 animals identified in a 2007 census. "The herd is still vey large, individual caribou appear to be healthy, the rate of decline is still modest, and harvests are not thought to be affecting its status," Dau said in a statement released a day earlier. "The revised estimate will not result in any immediate changes to management activities or hunting opportunities. The revised total is within a range of acceptable count variation and the herd is still considered stable, though slowly declining." Biologists intensified monitoring of this herd after the 2007 census suggested the onset of a decline. The revised 2009 count of 348,000 caribou indicates that the Western Arctic herd has declined 4-6 percent annually since its peak of 490,000 caribou in 2003,. Dau said that after exceeding a population size of 400,000 caribou for over 20 years, a period of slow decline is probably preferable to continued growth and the possibility of an eventual, abrupt decline. Caribou herds fluctuate naturally due to a variety of factors.
Posted 31 March 2011; 3:28:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, March11, United States
Norway joins Canada in seal ban fight
(Peter O’Neil/Postmedia News via Nunatsiaq News, 16 March 2011) -- Norway joined Canada March 15 in asking the World Trade Organization to establish a dispute-settlement panel to consider a challenge to the European Union’s seal products ban. “We consider the EU ban on seal products sales to be in violation of WTO rules and want an independent assessment of a dispute settlement panel in the WTO,” said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store, according to a translation of the government news release. The release said WTO-arranged consultations between Norway and the EU have failed. Canada announced last month that it was asking for a dispute-settlement panel to challenge the ban, which came into force last summer. The process normally takes a year to reach a conclusion, according to the news release. Norwegian Fisheries Minister Lisbeth Berg-Hansen echoed past statements by Canadian politicians, saying it is defending a principle that Norwegians have a right to take part in a sustainable harvest and then sell the products. The European Parliament, dismissing Canada’s argument that the hunt is humane, voted by a margin of 550 to 49 to impose its seal ban in May 2009. Since then, several rounds of trade consultations through the trade organization have failed to resolve the dispute.
Posted 16 March 2011; 10:09:04 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Cultural Matters, Economic issues, March11, Norway
Rare musk ox attack claims two dogs near Russian Mission [mp3]
[Found lodged in the crevices of my web site] (Shane Iverson/KYUK – Bethel via APRN, 22 December 2010) -- Animal attacks are simply part of life in many parts of Alaska, but an extremely rare attack occurred over the weekend near the village of Russian Mission. A musher from the Lower Yukon village says an animal he’d never seen on the trails, ran through his dog team, killing two of his best dogs.
Posted 15 February 2011; 3:25:59 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10
Rent-a-forest scheme promises to save Russia's taiga
[Found lodged in the crevices of my web site] (Mareike Aden/Living Planet, 12 March 2010) -- In the Bikin River Valley, in the region close to Russia's border with China, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and the indigenous locals have found an unusual conservation solution.
Posted 15 February 2011; 3:20:19 PM. 0113DECA.mp3 Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Environment and Landscape, Far East Russia, Indigenous Issues, March10, Russia
Walrus protection can wait: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(Yereth Rosen/Reuters, 9 February 2011) -- The Pacific walrus, hampered by vanishing sea ice in Arctic waters, deserves protection under the Endangered Species Act but must wait in line behind more imperiled animals, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman said on Tuesday. The decision dashed environmentalists' hopes that the lumbering, long-tusked marine mammal would soon join the polar bear as a federally protected icon of global warming. But it also drew criticism from Alaska's Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, who sided with the oil industry and other commercial interests in opposing new safeguards for either animal. In a move that seemed to satisfy no one, the agency determined that listing the walrus as a threatened or endangered species was warranted but "precluded," in part because higher-priority species, including a sea bird that feeds near coastal glaciers, need protecting first. Agency spokesman Bruce Woods said difficulty in obtaining an accurate walrus population count and lingering uncertainty about how their numbers may have declined also were factors in the "warranted but precluded" recommendation. The decision comes nearly two months after the government proposed listing two types of seals -- ringed and bearded seals -- as threatened species because the Arctic ice and snow they depend on is shrinking due to climate change. They became the second and third animals, after polar bears, to be recommended for protection under the Endangered Species Act because of ice loss in Alaska.
Posted 9 February 2011; 4:49:12 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and wildlife, February11
Midwinter ice storms deadly for Alaska's animal herds
(Craig Medred/Alaska Dispatch, 2 February 2011) -- Once more ice coats the brush and snow of Northwest Alaska, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Jim Dau wonders how the caribou will fare this time. Twice since 2005, the animals of the Western Arctic caribou herd have been hit hard by ice storms that threatened to lock their forage away beneath a layer of white pavement. After the first of those storms, large numbers of caribou suffered from starvation. Dau described them as dying "in droves." They have not been the only animals to struggle with winter ice in Alaska's volatile climate in recent years, either. In the Chugach and Kenai mountains, Tom Lohuis, a Fish and Game biologist studying Dall sheep, has begun to examine icing as a possible cause of significant mortality. Lohuis is early in his studies but he has already found evidence in the Dall sheep population of Southcentral that is analogous to what Dau has seen in the Arctic -- animals hard pressed to survive because of a layer of ice coating the ground or the snow. Neither caribou nor sheep are well equipped for chipping through frozen surfaces to get at their food. Both Dau and Lohuis have seen ice related deaths and use the phrase "bags of bones" to describe the animals that manage to survive winters with serious ice events..
Posted 5 February 2011; 11:07:31 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, February11
Polar bear's epic nine day swim in search of sea ice
(Ella Davies /BBC Earth News, 25 January 2011) -- A polar bear swam continuously for over nine days, covering 687km (426 miles), a new study has revealed. Scientists studying bears around the Beaufort sea, north of Alaska, claim this endurance feat could be a result of climate change. Polar bears are known to swim between land and sea ice floes to hunt seals. But the researchers say that increased sea ice melts push polar bears to swim greater distances, risking their own health and future generations. In their findings, published in Polar Biology, researchers from the US Geological Survey reveal the first evidence of long distance swimming by polar bears (Ursus maritimus). "This bear swam continuously for 232 hours and 687 km and through waters that were 2-6 degrees C," says research zoologist George M. Durner. "We are in awe that an animal that spends most of its time on the surface of sea ice could swim constantly for so long in water so cold. It is truly an amazing feat." Although bears have been observed in open water in the past, this is the first time one's entire journey has been followed. By fitting a GPS collar to a female bear, researchers were able to accurately plot its movements for two months as it sought out hunting grounds. The scientists were able to determine when the bear was in the water by the collar data and a temperature logger implanted beneath the bear's skin. The study shows that this epic journey came at a very high cost to the bear. "This individual lost 22% of her body fat in two months and her yearling cub," says Mr Durner. "It was simply more energetically costly for the yearling than the adult to make this long distance swim," he explains. Mr Durner tells the BBC that conditions in the Beaufort sea have become increasingly difficult for polar bears.
Posted 26 January 2011; 2:08:09 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, January11, Research
Creator of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge honored
(Estes Park Trail-Gazette, 25 January 2011)** -- Estes Park resident Dr. Robert Krear was one of the speakers for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Dr. Krear was invited to the headquarters of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service near Washington, D.C., the week of Jan. 17-21 to speak at the anniversary ceremony. In Washington, he was reunited with Dr. George Schaller. Along with Krear, they are the only surviving members of the famous Murie Arctic expedition. The two were among the featured speakers at this symposium involving numerous Alaskan biologists, refuge managers and other members of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Among the other speakers was former president Jimmy Carter. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the largest wildlife refuge in the United States. It is an area of great natural beauty that has been called the Serengeti of North America because of the wildlife populations that exist there. Dr. Krear considers his participation in the creation of the Arctic refuge the greatest contribution of his life. It all began in 1956, when Dr. Krear, a local retired biology professor and scientist, received a phone call from Dr. Olaus Murie of Jackson Hole, Wyo., who invited him to join Murie`s expedition to the northeast corner of Arctic Alaska for the purpose of assisting in ecological studies during exploration of that primitive area. It had been determined by the nation`s top environmentalists following World War II that that area of Alaska was the last pristine Arctic wilderness area remaining on the entire planet. There was an urgent necessity to preserve it from commercialization.
Posted 26 January 2011; 1:47:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, January11, North America, United States
Commission recommends Pacific walrus be listed as threatened or endangered [mp3]
(APRN, 24 January 2011) -- The federal Marine Mammal Commission has recommended that Pacific walrus be listed as threatened or endangered. The commission oversees marine mammal conservation policies carried out by federal agencies. The three-member panel says walrus face threats from the loss of sea ice that they rely on for foraging and giving birth. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is under a court-ordered deadline to decide by the end of this month whether to recommend walrus for the endangered species list.
Posted 25 January 2011; 11:46:27 PM. ann-20110124-04.mp3 Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, January11, North Pacific
Former president talks about preserving Arctic refuge
(West Virginia Public Radio - 19 January 2011) -- Yesterday afternoon attendees to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Services heard from former President Jimmy Carter about his efforts to expand the Arctic refuge and protect it from oil drilling. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1960 under Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration. But it was President Jimmy Carter and his interior secretary Cecil Andrus who found a way to expand the refuge over the objections of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). Carter said he and Andrus used the 1906 Antiquities Act to declare 17 parcels precious places they wanted to preserve. “And the cumulative size of them was 67 million acres, about the same size as the state of Minnesota to put it in perspective,” Carter said. Carter said Stevens, along with some oil and gas companies, argued to the U.S. Supreme Court that what the President did was unconstitutional. “To make a long story short the Supreme Court ruled in my favor,” Carter said. Carter’s decision to preserve so much land was not popular with many Alaskans. ... Carter has tried unsuccessfully to convince the democratic presidents who’ve served since he left office to do more to protect the refuge and he stands ready to fight any future efforts to drill for oil there.
Posted 25 January 2011; 9:58:48 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Celebrations, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Environment and Landscape, January11, United States
Deadly avian cholera threatens ducks in Canadian Arctic
(Tom Spears/Ottawa Citizen, 21January 2011) -- OTTAWA — A new bird disease has arrived in Canada’s Arctic, one so lethal it can kill thousands of ducks in a dense colony in a lightning-fast outbreak. Eider ducks stricken with avian cholera can die so fast that they remain upright on their eggs, eyes open. Some fall out of the sky, dead. Others survive unharmed, surrounded by corpses. Now Carleton University and Environment Canada will get more than half a million dollars to study the disease — which birds get it, how it spreads, why some survive, and how it arrived in the Arctic after decades of existing farther south. And the study started with a piece of good luck: Scientists were already studying the Arctic ducks before the disease broke out, giving them an unparalleled chance to compare precise data about the birds before and after the disease. The ducks are hunted by northern people for meat and eider down, said Grant Gilchrist of Environment Canada’s wildlife centre on the Carleton campus. The disease has existed across North America, but usually farther south. It may have arrived in poultry imported to Texas in the 1940s. “We were working on the eider at this site since 1996, before the disease arrived, so we’re in a rare position scientifically to have survival and reproductive data from before and after,” he said. “It’s just good luck. “It’s a new and emerging disease in the Canadian Arctic, which is quite worrisome.”
Posted 22 January 2011; 5:12:22 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, January11
Labrador Inuit want to hunt more caribou
(CBC News, 14 January 2011) -- The Nunatsiavut government is asking for rule changes that would allow its members to hunt more caribou. Right now Nunatsiavut beneficiaries can kill as many caribou as they want on Inuit lands in northern Labrador, but outside that area, they're subject to the same rules as every other resident of the province. Newfoundland and Labrador limits hunters to just one animal per year. Some Inuit leaders want that to change. "It is very important that special consideration be given to beneficiaries," said Nunatsiavut First Minister Darryl Shiwak. He won't say exactly how many more animals they want but he did say that people in Nunatsiavut want Caribou to thrive in Labrador. "The conservation of this herd is very important but what we heard loud and clear is that people want to be able to harvest some caribou," said Shiwak. He also raised the idea of letting hunters transfer licences so one hunter can kill animals for several people. That's something the provincial government just abolished. The province hasn't responded to Nunatsiavut's request.
Posted 16 January 2011; 12:09:00 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Indigenous Issues, January11, Nunatsiavut, Resource Issues
Declining sea ice forces Arctic hamlet to install new polar bear safeguards
(Winnipeg Free Press, 13 January 2011) -- ARVIAT, Nunavut - The increasingly late freeze-up of sea ice on Hudson Bay has forced one Arctic community to take new measures to protect itself from the growing number of polar bears roaming its streets. "It is very scary because they can be very aggressive," said Alex Ishalook, president of the Hunters and Trappers Organization in Arviat, Nunavut. Bears have always been common around Arviat, along the western shore of Hudson Bay. The hamlet is on the bears' migration route as they return to their sealing grounds on the floe edge of Hudson Bay after spending the summer on shore. But sightings of the fearsome predators — known to stalk and kill humans — have become increasingly common over the last few years in the community itself. "It just started three to four years (ago)," said Ishalook. "There used to be no polar bears going into town. Now, I have seen a polar bear one foot away from our house." Bear sightings in Arviat are probably increasingly because the warming Arctic means Hudson Bay freezes over later and later, said Chris Hotson of the Nunavut government's environment department. "The last two years, the ice has been really late in coming in, which means the bears have been coming around for a longer period of time. In the few years, we've seen a real spike in activity." This winter, bears had to wait until early December to hit the ice — weeks later than usual. And because they eat little during the summer and must live off the fat from the winter's seal hunting, those bears are hungry. "It's daily sightings," said Ishalook. "There's footprints walking along the roads and around the buildings. Some are going right into porches and sheds." Although Arviat has long used watchmen to warn children and adults when a bear is visiting, it was becoming clear that something more was needed. ... This fall, the Nunavut government and the World Wildlife Fund brought in two large metal shipping containers in which people can store their seal and caribou meat. Smaller metal bins can be used to keep meat for dog teams safe. Hunters have been given wire mesh to wrap around their food caches out on the land. Dog teams have been encircled by electric fencing. "The underlying effort is not to just deter the bears when they get there, but to try to ensure they're not being attracted into the community," said Hotson.
Posted 14 January 2011; 2:25:05 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Communities, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, January11
Fishing groups sue over sea lion protection
(AP via Anchorage Daily News, 8 January 2011) -- UNALASKA - Alaska seafood organizations are suing to stop a ruling by the National Marine Fisheries Service that would protect fish on which the endangered Steller sea lions feed. Alaska Public Radio Network reported the ruling by the fisheries service has closed an area to fishing Atka mackerel and Pacific cod. The Alaska Seafood Cooperative fishes in the closed area, and takes about 90 percent of its Atka mackerel quota. Linda Larson, an attorney for the cooperative, said the ruling is misguided and unfairly blames overfishing for the decline of the Steller sea lion population when other factors might be to blame. Larson said the cooperative doesn't view the situation as a "conservation emergency." The fisheries service said it had to close the area to be in compliance with the Endangered Species Act.
Posted 10 January 2011; 10:22:24 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, January11, Laws and legal, Resource Issues
Polar bears have highest levels of toxic pollutants of any creature
(Telegraph, 2 January 2011) -- Although they live in the Arctic wilderness, the bears were found to have high levels of pollution because of the toxic food chain, scientists say. This is because industrial pollution from Europe, America and Asia is dispersed by air and ocean currents and concentrated over the Arctic. The smaller animals are all affected by the chemicals, but this is magnified as they go up the food chain - ending with the bears, shows research from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Studies found that along with bears, three species of whales, ringed seals, Stellar sea lions, walrus, mink and arctic fox all had high levels of pollutants such as PCBs and brominated flame retardants. Only the bears and a species of gull in Norway were found to be suffering stress from the contamination, but scientists say this is simply due to lack of data, and not an indication the pollutants are not harmful.
Posted 8 January 2011; 5:37:17 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Contaminants and pollution, Flora and Fauna, January11
Rare northern elephant seal washes up on Unalaska beach
(Reid Brewer/The Arctic Sounder, 29 December 2010) -- If you ask any member of the Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network, dead things tend to wash up on beaches only on holidays, weekends or after 5 p.m. In this case, local Unalaskan Kyle Eby reported a carcass on the beach just past the Unalaska landfill on Sunday, Dec. 12. In the past six years, we have seen the carcasses of seven Steller sea lions, three harbor seals and one northern fur seal, but never anything like this. The male northern elephant seal that washed up measured about 12.5 feet long and weighed approximately two tons. Thank you to the City of Unalaska roads crew for bringing the carcass up the beach. The northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) is the largest seal in the northern hemisphere. Although it was thought to have been hunted to extinction by the late 1800s, the population is currently estimated at over 150,000. ... Though the carcass found in Unalaska was intact, there were some signs of scavenging by eagles and ravens, and the skin just above the skull was missing. There were a few holes in the abdomen and the rear flippers showed some signs of damage, but there were not any obvious signs of human interaction. The cause of death is unknown, but tissue and organ samples will be sent to a veterinarian pathologist for examination. It was likely that this individual was out feeding on the Bering Shelf break before it died and was washed into Unalaska with recent strong northerly winds. Though the stomach was empty, this species feeds on deep water fish species and squid.
Posted 30 December 2010; 12:53:02 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10, Flora and Fauna, North Pacific, Research
'Spy cams' film polar bears up close
(BBC News, 29 December 2010) -- Several hi-tech cameras have cast new light on the world of the polar bear, in the icy Arctic islands of Svalbard in Norway. Blizzard cam and snowball cam, iceberg cam and several drift cams were kitted out to withstand temperatures as low as -30C. But to get the footage seen in Polar Bear: Spy on The Ice, they also had to be able to withstand the attentions of curious polar bears—including this mother, out of her maternity den with her new cub for the first time.
Posted 29 December 2010; 2:19:58 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Movies, video and TV, Norway, Photography, Research
Debate rages over official protection for polar bears
(Neela Banerjee/Tribune via Keene Sentinel, 27 December 2010) -- WASHINGTON - A dispute about how much the government should protect polar bears has turned into a battleground for environmentalists and some of the country’s most powerful business organizations over the larger question of global warming. On Wednesday, the Interior Department filed arguments in federal court defending its decision to classify polar bears as “threatened” rather than “endangered” despite widespread shrinkage of the sea ice that forms the bears’ natural habitat. What makes the issue so sensitive is that, if polar bears received the stricter endangered classification, the Obama administration would be pressured to attack the problem at its source: the petroleum, coal and manufacturing companies that emit the greenhouse gases scientists say are a major factor in climate change. “There is a pronounced push-back from industry because they rightly see that they will have to modify or mitigate their activities to comply with the laws,” said Andrew Wetzler, director of the Land and Wildlife program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the environmental groups suing to change the polar bear’s status. ... Although the Obama administration has moved steadily to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, now — with a tough re-election campaign ahead in 2012 and a still-wobbly economy — the White House has been trying not to provoke policy battles with the wary business community. The issue is even more sensitive because tougher emissions rules would be likely to raise prices and could cost jobs.
Posted 27 December 2010; 11:37:23 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10, United States
Rare musk ox attack claims two dogs near Russian Mission [mp3]
(Shane Iverson/KYUK – Bethel via APRN, 22 December 2010) -- Animal attacks are simply part of life in many parts of Alaska, but an extremely rare attack occurred over the weekend near the village of Russian Mission. A musher from the Lower Yukon village says an animal he’d never seen on the trails, ran through his dog team, killing two of his best dogs.(Shane Iverson/KYUK – Bethel via APRN, 22 December 2010) -- Animal attacks are simply part of life in many parts of Alaska, but an extremely rare attack occurred over the weekend near the village of Russian Mission. A musher from the Lower Yukon village says an animal he’d never seen on the trails, ran through his dog team, killing two of his best dogs.
Posted 25 December 2010; 12:24:31 AM. ann-20101222-03.mp3 Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10
Icelandic cod fisheries certified as responsible
(Iceland Review News, 16 December 2010) -- Icelandic cod fisheries received a Global Trust Certification, an international certification based on strict conditions which confirms responsible fishery control and sustainable use of the ocean’s resources, yesterday. Managing director of Global Trust Certification Peter Marshall presented the certification to the representatives of the Icelandic fishing industry at a special ceremony in the Reykjavík Maritime Museum, a press release from the Federation of Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners states. “This certification from a third party which meets the demands and ethics regulations of the FAO in fisheries shows that cod fishing in Iceland is well and responsibly managed. I’d like to congratulate the Icelandic fishing industry,” Marshall said, adding that Iceland could become a role model for other nations. Minister of Fisheries Jón Bjarnason said in his speech at the ceremony that the certification is important to the Icelandic fishing industry as it has now been confirmed that it meets the market’s demands on sustainability and renewability of natural resources.
Posted 18 December 2010; 8:23:13 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10, Fisheries, Iceland, International, Resource Issues
Government defends decision to ban narwhal tusk sales
(Randy Boswell/Postmedia News, 17 December 2010) -- The Canadian government is defending its controversial decision to ban the export of narwhal tusks from most of the Nunavut communities currently selling the spear-like objects that inspired the unicorn myth. Officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans told Postmedia News on Friday that Canada's hands are essentially tied on the issue because of its commitment to the protocols of an international wildlife treaty controlling the global trade in animal parts — including the long, spiralling tooth that serves as a sensor and mating adornment for the iconic Arctic whale. The tusks, which can grow longer than three metres, are coveted by collectors as rare keepsakes or used by ivory carvers to make canes, figurines and other objects. A few hundred from Arctic Canada are sold annually to buyers abroad, fetching prices of as much as $2,000 each and generating significant supplementary income for many Inuit hunters. In 2006, a single mounted narwhal tusk sold at a U.S. auction for more than $16,000. While acknowledging it was a "difficult decision" that will have a financial impact on Inuit communities, DFO spokesman Alain Belle-Isle said: "The result would be even worse if we skirted the rules," regulating foreign sales of the tusks. "If we didn't follow our obligations," he noted, "we could face sanctions," including a total ban on all narwhal products from all Canadian suppliers. The federal department informed Nunavut communities earlier this week that in order to comply with the terms of CITES — the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — Canada would suspend foreign sales of narwhal tusks harvested in 2010 in 17 of the 22 Inuit communities that are now exporting the objects.
Posted 18 December 2010; 9:26:51 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, policy and politics, Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10, Economic issues, Indigenous Issues, Nunavut
New monitoring system for the Barents region
(Rolleiv Solholm /The Norway Post, 2 July 2010) -- The Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs has been given the responsibility for setting up a new, full-spectrum monitoring and information system for the Northern sea and coastal areas (“BarentsWatch”). The work will be headed up by the Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA). The Norwegian Mapping Authority, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and many other specialist bodies will be involved in the work. The plan is for BarentsWatch to be developed in several phases, the first of which will involve the creation of a public information portal for the sea areas. The operations centre for the portal will be located in Tromsø. In parallel with the establishment of this open system, a closed, operational system will be developed to combine information from various sources in order to facilitate dealing with special situations. The plan is for this closed system to be linked to the Vessel Traffic Service centre at Vardø. BarentsWatch is envisaged as a vital tool for providing the Norwegian authorities with a coherent picture of what may be happening at any time in the very extensive sea areas in the North. This in turn will serve to strengthen Norway’s role as a responsible manager of the sea areas and thereby safeguard the substantial assets they represent. The Government gave advance notice in its High North Strategy of 2006 that it aimed to develop a full-spectrum monitoring and warning system for the Northern sea areas. This system will provide constant access to quality-assured data on the Northern sea and coastal areas, and ensure clear, up-to-date status information in the event of accidents, for risk evaluation of activities at sea, and for national and international climate, resource and environmental assessments. The system will also be capable of supporting Norwegian foreign policy.
Posted 18 December 2010; 9:21:33 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, policy and politics, Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, July10, Norway
US designates 'critical' polar bear habitat in Arctic
(AFP, 24 November 2010) -- WASHINGTON – The US government on Wednesday designated "critical habitat" for polar bears who live on Alaska's disappearing sea ice, a move that could impact new oil and gas drilling projects in the Arctic. The Fish and Wildlife Service set aside 187,000 square miles (484,000 square kilometers) off Alaska as the threatened bears' habitat, which means any project that could impact the animals' way of life must undergo careful review. "This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations," said Tom Strickland, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. "Nevertheless, the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of its sea ice habitat caused by human-induced climate change. We will continue to work toward comprehensive strategies for the long-term survival of this iconic species." The move falls short of barring any drilling or other activity in the area, but "identifies geographic areas containing features considered essential for the conservation of the bear that require special management or protection." US environmental advocates earlier this month warned that polar bear habitats could be disrupted if oil companies eager to exploit the Arctic for fuel were to experience an accidental spill like the BP gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. The Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged that the designation, which includes swaths of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off northern Alaska, "encompass(es) areas where oil and gas exploration activities are known to occur." Any activity there would now have to undergo a review to "identify ways to implement these actions consistent with species conservation," the statement said.
Posted 18 December 2010; 9:19:22 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Autonomy, policy and politics, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, November10, United States
Ottawa proposes boundaries for Lancaster Sound marine conservation area
(Nunatsiaq News, 6 December 2010) -- John Baird, the federal environment minister, on Dec. 6 laid out the federal government’s position on boundaries for a proposed national marine conservation area around Lancaster Sound. Ottawa’s boundary proposal would protect about 44,500 square kilometres of marine territory that encompasses most of Lancaster Sound and all the waters surround Bylot Island, including Eclipse Sound. It’s part of a negotiation process in which the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and the federal government would enter into talks about how and when a national marine conservation area will be created in Lancaster Sound. But the completion date for the project still appears to be several years away: a steering committee that would produce a feasibility study on such a protected area has yet to be created. “I welcome the honourable minister’s announcement as an indication that all parties are committed to advancing on the feasibility study. Beyond boundary proposals, QIA is eager to establish the project steering committee and complete discussions on how the feasibility process will unfold,” Okalik Eegeesiak, the president of Qikiqtani Inuit Association said in a statement issued Dec. 6. She also said QIA “is setting its sights on a longer term vision for Lancaster Sound,” through the Inuit impact and benefits agreement that must be negotiated before the conservation area can be created.
Posted 6 December 2010; 9:41:22 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10, Environment and Landscape, Nunavut
As ANWR turns 50, the refuge reaches a critical juncture
(Molly Rettig/Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 5 December 2010) -- FAIRBANKS — Ginny Wood had never seen the northeast corner of Alaska when she launched a decades-long campaign to win official protection for it. Like many others, she had only heard about the untouched landscapes: where 8,000 foot mountains tumbled across lush tundra and wild rivers carved through glacial valleys and emptied in the Beaufort Sea. Wood, a pilot who flew surplus World War II aircraft to Alaska, began leading recreational trips to the area in the 1950s. “Why not save something that’s the last wild place in the United States?” Wood asked as she sipped tea in the living room of her log home off Ballaine Road last week. From the same room, a group of Fairbanks scientists and conservationists in 1959 headquartered a campaign to establish the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Through their efforts, the refuge (then called a range) was born on Dec. 6, 1960. “It was so unspoiled and full of wildlife. And so far north,” recalled Wood, now 93. “This is a Fairbanks thing, and without Fairbanks it probably never would have been established,” said Pam Miller, who directs the arctic program for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center. “They had a vision of what we were losing so quickly in Alaska, that had already been lost throughout most of America.” Monday marks the 50th anniversary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s creation, but the area’s future, contested for decades, is yet again at a critical juncture. For the first time in 22 years, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, is updating its conservation plan. In September, land managers said they would consider extending official wilderness protection to the coastal plain.
Posted 6 December 2010; 4:40:40 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10
(Washington Post, 6 December 2010) -- On Dec. 6, 1960, nearly 9 million acres of Alaska was set aside as an Arctic National Wildlife Range by order of Interior Secretary Fred A. Seaton. (In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed an act doubling the size of the range and renaming it the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.)
Posted 6 December 2010; 4:38:26 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10, United States
Canada set to declare Arctic marine sanctuary protected: officials
(Randy Boswell, Postmedia News via Vancouver Sun, 4 December 2010) -- The leading advocates of a new national marine park in Lancaster Sound — a wildlife-rich but controversial expanse of waters off the north coast of Baffin Island — say the Canadian government is poised to end doubts about the area’s future and officially declare it protected. The government issued a cryptic alert Saturday stating that Environment Minister John Baird will make “an important announcement concerning the long-term protection of Canada’s North” on Monday in Ottawa. Representatives from a key proponent of the park — the Pew Environment Group’s Oceans North Canada — told Postmedia News on Saturday that all signs suggest Baird is set to expedite the process to formally establish the marine sanctuary, based largely on boundaries proposed by Inuit communities that have lived and hunted in the area for centuries. “We’re very hopeful that what we’re going to hear is the confirmation from the federal government of expansive boundaries for the marine conservation area,” said Chris Debicki, Nunavut director for Oceans North Canada. Lancaster Sound was the focus of a high-profile dispute this summer between the government — particularly Natural Resources Canada — and Baffin-area communities represented by the Qikiqtani Inuit Association.
Posted 5 December 2010; 6:25:03 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10, Flora and Fauna, Nunavut
NOAA proposes listing 2 Arctic seal species as threatened
(Dan Joling/Anchorage Daily News, 3 December 2010) -- The federal government on Friday proposed listing two seals that depend on sea ice as threatened species because of the projected loss of ice from climate warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will seek to list ringed seals found in the Arctic Basin and the North Atlantic and two populations of bearded seals in the Pacific Ocean as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Ringed seals are the main prey of polar bears, which were listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2008. For ringed seals, the proposed listing also cites the threat of reduced snow cover. NOAA climate models were used to predict future sea ice conditions. The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned to list the seals in 2008 and later sued to force a decision on additional protections. "We're pleased that NOAA is following the science and the law in recognizing the reality of what global warming is doing to the Arctic and its species," said Brendan Cummings, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. ... Alaska's northern waters have four species of ice seals.
Posted 3 December 2010; 2:49:17 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, December10, Environment and Landscape, Flora and Fauna
Reindeer and other herbivors determine the tree line - not warmth
(Gustaf Klarin/SR Vetenskapsradion via Eye on the Arctic, 29 November 2010) -- It is not principally a warmer climate that is making the tree line creep upwards in many directions in the Swedish mountains. This is shown in a new study from the Torneträsk region in northern Sweden. There are several other factors that affect the spread of trees more than higher temperatures. It is mainly grazing reindeer, insect attacks, and several other factors that affect the spread of the mountainous forest, more than the changed temperature situation. "Tree line can go up, down or stay in the same position even during the same climatic period. That has not being showed before," says Terry Callaghan, director of the Abisko Scientific Research Station. Researchers were able to see that precisely reindeer grazing affects more than the temperature, since the tree line advanced furthest upward during the cold period that started in the late 1960s and continued through the 1970s, it was a time of fewer reindeer. A warmer climate has more of an indirect effect through, for example, there being more insects that can damage trees.
Posted 29 November 2010; 7:02:01 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Research, Sweden
Regulating trade in animal parts is not for the squeamish
(Casey Grove/Anchorage Daily News, 26 November 2010) -- Bizarre and sometimes illegal animal parts shipped through Alaska often catch the attention of U.S. Fish and Wildlife inspectors -- often enough that they seize animal parts or products, on average, once a week. The most recent example: a stack of 55 monitor lizard skins – used for belts, watch bands and purses, valued at more than $4,200 – now sitting in a warehouse in Anchorage. ... Inspectors see cans of whale meat from Japan that are labeled with nutrition facts. Bear fat in big glass bottles with Russian letters. Bear gallbladders in plastic bags from Alaska, bound for Asia. Grilled monitor lizard pieces from Mexico. Grilled rat meat from Laos and Vietnam. Grilled bats on sticks. ... Some of the items seized are regulated for trade or, like elephant parts, are banned from trade under an international treaty: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES for short. After decades of debate and discussion on the trade of animal parts, more than 80 countries agreed to the CITES treaty in 1975. ... In Alaska, the trade in illegal bear parts has seen a steady increase in the past several decades, Andrews said. On the black market, specific parts of the bear are thought to be able to increase the sexual prowess of men.
Posted 26 November 2010; 8:38:25 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, November10
Municipality in Iceland’s West Fjords wants reindeer
(Iceland Review News, 24 November 2010) -- The minority in the district council of the Vesturbyggd municipality in the southwestern West Fjords want to apply for a permit from the Environment Agency of Iceland to establish an up to 4,000-animal wild reindeer stock in the West Fjords. Currently, there are only reindeer in east Iceland. According to the proposal, reindeer are to be transported from the east and with time, form a large reindeer stock which could roam the area and serve as a source of income for the municipality, ruv.is reports. Proposals to that end have been rejected before due to fear of impact on farming in the region and possible diseases being transmitted to sheep. However, the minority in Vesturbyggd’s district council reasons there is no risk in relocating reindeer to the west as there are no examples of reindeer having infected sheep in east Iceland. Also, the number of sheep in the West Fjords has dropped significantly in the recent decades. The proposal is awaiting review.
Posted 24 November 2010; 3:55:47 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Conservation and wildlife, Economic issues, Iceland, November10
(Line Nagell Ylvisåker/Svalbardposten, 12 November 2010) -- The polar guillemot is a new addition to "Norwegian Red List of Species 2010" which was published Tuesday [9 November]. Svalbard population has declined dramatically in recent years. 71 Svalbard species are classified as Red List species in the new list of Biodiversity Information. Five of them are new on the list that was last updated in 2006. Polar guillemots are one of them. "The polar guillemot has had a relatively sharp decline in population both on Spitsbergen and Bear Island," says bird researcher Halvard Strøm at the Norwegian Polar Institute. He served on the expert group that worked with the Red List. The size of the polar guillemot population has decreased the last five to ten years. "The sharp decline indicates that there are things that we must be aware of," said Strøm. Scientists are now trying to figure out what has caused the Svalbard population decline. "The reason may be changes in food supply, both on Svalbard and in winter quarters," said Power.
Posted 14 November 2010; 12:37:44 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Norway, November10
Partnership signed to protect char
(Katie May/Northern News Services, 8 November 2010 ) -- AKLAVIK - John Carmichael watched intently as representatives from the federal government, the Gwich'in and the Inuvialuit passed around official papers calling for the conservation of char in the Mackenzie Delta. He knew their signatures meant they'd listened to him. Carmichael, an Aklavik elder, began monitoring Dolly Varden char around the community 16 years ago and was one of the first fishermen to alert officials when he noticed the fish were dwindling. Dolly Varden char stocks have been decreasing significantly around Aklavik and Fort McPherson for the past 30 years. Last week the Gwich'in, Inuvialuit and federal government heeded residents' advice and officially took a step to protect the fish by signing an integrated fisheries management plan in front of an audience of about 30 people in Aklavik Nov. 3. The plan is the first of its kind for Dolly Varden char and it encompasses areas under both the Gwich'in and Inuvialuit land claims, though several Dolly Varden habitats have been voluntarily closed to fishing for more than 20 years, including at Big Fish River outside of Aklavik. The GNWT classifies the species as "sensitive," one step away from being at risk, and the new management plan recommends that Gwich'in and Inuvialuit councils set harvest caps at no more than five per cent of the total Dolly Varden stock, which differs from river to river.
Posted 14 November 2010; 12:02:47 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, November10, NWT
More lynx in the Swedish north
(Radio Sweden, 13 November 2010) -- There’s concern among reindeer herders in northern Sweden about the growing number of lynx in the northern forests. The lynx is the only indigenous wildcat in Sweden. According to this year’s inventory of predatory animals, there have been twelve new litters of lynx cubs in the past year in the eastern part of the province of Norrland. That’s three more than last year. The reindeer herding Samis in the area say three more litters are too many, as the lynx attack the reindeer.
Posted 13 November 2010; 7:46:15 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, November10, Sweden
In warming climate, geese and polar bears strike a balance
(Stephanie Pappas/LiveScience, 4 November 2010) -- The polar bear is the poster child for species threatened with extinction by climate change. But a new study finds that the Arctic animals may get a reprieve in the form of an abundant supply of eggs from snow geese. The findings aren't bad news for snow geese, either, the researchers report online in the journal Oikos. No matter how many goose eggs polar bears consume, the geese are safe from extinction. That's because the overlap, or match, between snow goose nesting and polar bear hunting is limited to a small window of time, according to the study. Polar bears are a vulnerable species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and experts worry that shrinking sea ice will keep the bears away from their spring prey of seal pups. Using a computer model, researchers from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) found that goose eggs could replace seal pups as polar bears' main meal. Previously, snow geese finished their nesting and hatching before polar bears came ashore from breaking sea ice to hunt. Now that sea ice is breaking up earlier, however, some bears have begun to forage amidst snow goose rookeries. That practice led to concerns that the bears would plow through the egg supply, driving the geese to extinction before running out of food themselves. But according to the new model, geese can breathe easy. "Even if the bears eat every egg during each year of complete 'match,' our model shows that periodic years of mismatch will provide windows of successful goose reproduction," study researcher Robert Rockwell, a research associate at AMNH and a professor at the City University of New York, said in a statement.
Posted 10 November 2010; 11:39:15 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Research
Deep-diving narwhals aid Arctic research effort
(Randy Boswell/Postmedia News, 30 October 2010) - Scientists trying to measure the impact of climate change in Baffin Bay — the vast arm of the Arctic Ocean that separates Canada and Greenland — have employed narwhals as research assistants to gather temperature data from the icy depths. The use of the animals as "biological oceanographers" has shown that waters in this key habitat for the tusked whale — famous for its spiralling "horn," which inspired the ancient unicorn myth — are warming faster than previous climatology data had suggested. The researchers from the University of Washington and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources attached tags with satellite-readable temperature sensors onto the narwhals and then recorded transmitted data as they swam and dove in the iceberg-choked bay. "Narwhals proved to be highly efficient and cost-effective 'biological oceanographers,' providing wintertime data to fill gaps in our understanding of this important ocean area," lead researcher Kristin Laidre said in a summary of the study, which was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Oceans. "Their natural behaviour makes them ideal for obtaining ocean temperatures during repetitive deep vertical dives," she added. "This mission was a 'proof-of-concept' that narwhal-obtained data can be used to make large-scale hydrographic surveys in Baffin Bay and to extend the coverage of a historical database into the poorly sampled winter season." In some cases, the whales dove to depths of more than 1,700 metres in pursuit of food, providing scientists with superb data about changing temperature levels throughout the water column. The scientists said ice cover in Baffin Bay can make direct monitoring by human researchers difficult, dangerous and expensive at various times of the year.
Posted 31 October 2010; 7:48:35 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, October 2010, Research
Protecting Arctic Biodiversity - New publication launched
(UNEP, 27 October 2010) -- The Arctic is experiencing some of the most rapid environmental changes on the planet. Whilst this presents enormous challenges for conserving biodiversity, it also offers opportunities for enhancing cooperation between nations and reforming environmental governance to meet the challenges of the 21st Century, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The Arctic contribution to global biodiversity is significant. Hundreds of migrating species (including 279 species of birds and the grey and humpback whales) travel long distances each year in order to take advantage of productive Arctic summers. However, evidence of warming in the Arctic is mounting year on year — with serious consequences for biodiversity. This year is no exception. One well-publicised impact of warming is the loss of habitat for species dependent on sea ice, such as polar bears. But this is only one change. Across the Arctic, many habitats that are considered critical for biodiversity, such as the tundra, have been disappearing over the last few decades. Launched to coincide with the 10th Meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, the report, entitled Protecting Arctic Biodiversity: Strengths and Limitations of Environmental Agreements, was researched by UNEP’s Polar Centre GRID–Arendal in Norway. The report underlines that although tried and tested solutions to the current biodiversity crisis in the Arctic exist in the region itself, important conservation gains will only be won if root causes originating outside the Arctic region are addressed. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “We are currently witnessing unprecedented change in the Arctic, which will have important and far-reaching consequences not only for the region itself, but for the rest of the world.” This report is a follow-up to the Arendal Seminar in 2006, co-organised by UNEP/GRID–Arendal and the Standing Committee for Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region (SCPAR) to identify gaps, challenges, and steps that can be taken to make the global MEAs more relevant to the Arctic and more useful in ensuring good governance and sustainable development. View the report online
Posted 31 October 2010; 3:42:28 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and Wildlife, International, October 2010, Research
EU seal ban decision reinstated - ITK to appeal
(Eye on the Arctic, 29 October 2010) -- Since the European Union voted to ban seal products, the North American seal market has collapsed hitting Canadian Inuit communities hard – both economically and emotionally. A legal challenge filed by Inuit leaders delayed the ban for about two months, but on October 28th, the EU Court declared the ban final. (Story updated from original publication April 2010). See also VIDEO: Seal Ban: The Inuit Impact. The ban on seal products was passed in the European Parliament last spring by a vote of 550 to 49. It was adopted following a relentless campaign by animal welfare activists who opposed the commercial seal hunt, calling it inhumane. While the EU ban makes a partial exemption for seal products obtained through the Inuit subsistence hunt, Inuit sealers say the exemption makes little sense, as the ban has completely devastated the seal product market. "Back in 1983 the Europeans placed a ban on baby harp seals and at that time we were told that the Inuit would be exempt from the ban. However, when the seal market collapsed, even though there was an exemption for the Inuit, the Inuit suffered," Nunavut Deputy Minister Simon Awa said. "It's getting more and more difficult for a hunter to put food on the table." A coalition of organizations, including hunter and trapper organizations, the Inuit Circumpolar Council (Greenland) and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (representing Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, Nunavut, and the Inuvialuit Settlement – 53,000 Inuit) were involved in a court challenge on the ban. They say there is no environmental justification for the trade ban, that seal populations are being harvested at reasonable levels, and their hunting practices are humane. The EU court imposed a temporary suspension on the ban while they reviewed the challenge, but it was officially reinstated October 28th. Canada's Inuit and the fur industry will appeal the EU court ruling. "I am disappointed and angered that the suspension of the ban has been lifted, now that the judge has had ample time since Aug. 19 to properly consider this immoral legislation," said Mary Simon, president of Canada's national Inuit organization, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, in a news release. "We plan to appeal the ruling as we believe the original seal ban was based on colonial perceptions of our sealing practices, and this week's ruling is a perfect illustration of this." Meantime, the Canadian government is planning to challenge the ban before the World Trade Organization, saying the ban is based on false information and violates trade obligations. The Inuit subsistence seal hunt differs from the commercial hunt that has drawn the ire of animal rights activists. Unlike Atlantic coast fishermen who hunt harp seals to supply tanneries with skins and pharmaceutical companies with Omega-3-fatty-acid-rich blubber, the Inuit hunt ringed seals to feed their communities. The hunting methods are different as well. Inuit hunters mostly use high-powered rifles, not clubs, to kill the seals. The skins have always been a by-product of the hunt, while providing a much-needed source of income. ... In a climate where the ground is covered in snow for 10 months of the year, livestock farming and agriculture are impossible. For the Inuit, the hunt is a way of life; a cultural mainstay, a way of living sustainably, and ultimately, of surviving. The Inuit harvest resources that the land and water provide. They rely heavily upon the seal.
Posted 29 October 2010; 4:33:35 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Indigenous Issues, International, Nunavut, October 2010, Social Issues
Mad raven attacks child and dog in West Iceland
(Iceland Review Online, 10 October 2010) -- An aggressive raven was terminated on Wednesday in the presence of the police after it had attacked a child and a dog in Grundahverfi near Akranes in west Iceland. “We’d like to point out to people to beware of ravens who aren’t afraid of humans. That one was particularly aggressive,” a housewife who witnessed the attack told local news website Skessuhorn. “The raven landed on our patio. Our daughter was outside with the dog, which is a three-month-old puppy. The raven perched on the patio wall and stared at them. When she bent down to pick up a stick for the dog […] the raven attacked her and tried to grab her back,” the mother, who wouldn’t be named, described. “The child was terrified, screamed and ran inside with the dog. If I hadn’t managed to close the door the raven would have followed them inside. The beast then hung around on the patio croaking viciously for a long time. My husband came home and it was still there,” she continued. The couple contacted the Icelandic Institute of Natural History which permitted the raven’s termination. A police officer who was called to the scene confirmed how aggressively the raven was acting. After following it around for a while, the raven was terminated without a firearm being used—that would not have been practical in the middle of a residential area. “We were concerned about people and the animals around us, especially kids who like to walk this way home from school,” the housewife concluded.
Posted 11 October 2010; 6:17:12 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Conservation and Wildlife, Iceland, October 2010
Significant drop in number of seabirds in Iceland
(Iceland Review Online, 4 October 2010) -- Brunnich’s guillemot has decreased by 44 percent in Iceland since the mid-1980s. Fulmar and guillemot have decreased by 30 percent in the same period, razorbill by 18 percent and kittiwake by 16 percent. The Icelandic seabird stocks account for about a quarter of all seabirds in the North Atlantic and therefore have an undisputed importance internationally, visir.is reports. Professor emeritus Arnthór Gardarsson discussed in a lecture last week how five of the most common seabird stocks in Iceland have changed in the last two decades, both in regard to their size and geographical distribution. The changes are different between places and species. Razorbill has, for example, decreased at Hornstrandir [link to map] in the northern West Fjords but increased on Grímsey island [link to map], off Iceland’s northern coast. The presence of kittiwake is decreasing in many different locations, especially in southeast Iceland where its number has dropped by 80 percent. An overview study of the Icelandic seabird stocks is currently being completed by a research team working on behalf of the University of Iceland, the Icelandic Institute of Natural History and the Icelandic Marine Research Institute. Click here to read more [from Iceland Review] about the condition of seabird stocks in Iceland and here to read about the status of the puffin.
Posted 4 October 2010; 11:57:02 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Iceland, October 2010
Battle over U.S. Arctic refuge's future heats up
(Yereth Rosen/Reuters via FoxBusiness, 1 October 2010) -- ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A planned study of possible new wilderness protections for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has sparked a furor in Alaska, where energy companies have long dreamed of tapping oil reserves beneath its vast coastal plain home to herds of migrating animals. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service effort announced this week is part of a sweeping review of a land-management plan for what is the second-largest national wildlife refuge in the United States. The agency stresses that its work is just starting and that a formal draft is not expected until next year. But the oil industry and its political allies regard it as a prelude to an attempt to keep the refuge off-limits to energy production for good by formally declaring its remote coastal tundra as wilderness. "Alaska will not allow the federal government to lock up more land without a fight," Governor Sean Parnell said this week. The Alaska Wilderness League, for its part, accuses oil companies of trying to destroy a refuge that represents the only place on Alaska's North Slope that is legislatively closed to development. "The Arctic Refuge is one of the last true wilderness areas left in the United States — some places are just too special to sacrifice to oil and gas development," said Cindy Shogan, the league's executive director. Established 50 years ago in the northeast corner of Alaska, ANWR occupies 19.3 million acres, stretching from saltwater marshes of the Beaufort Sea on its northern edge to the spruce, birch and aspen forests in the Brooks Range's southern foothills. Its wilderness plan was last revised in 1988, eight years after Congress expanded the refuge to its current size and effectively closed all of it to energy development.
Posted 3 October 2010; 8:44:50 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Environment and Landscape, October 2010, Resource Issues
Arctic warms, sea ice shrinks, extinction risk grows
(ENS, 14 September 2010) -- SAN FRANCISCO, California - From foxes to whales to walruses to plankton, Arctic species are being pushed toward extinction by rapid climate change, finds a new report by two conservation groups. In a report released Monday, the Center for Biological Diversity and Care for the Wild International document the situations of 17 Arctic animals trying to survive the effects of climate change and ocean acidification. "The polar bear is the best-known victim of rapid melting in the Arctic, but if we don't slash greenhouse pollution, many more creatures will follow it down the path to extinction," said Shaye Wolf, the Center's climate science director and lead author of the report, "Extinction: It's Not Just for Polar Bears." Most of the 17 imperiled species are mammals - the Arctic fox, polar bear, caribou or reindeer, muskox, and Pacific walrus, as well as four whales - gray, beluga, bowhead and narwhal. Four ice seals are also at risk — the ringed, bearded, harp and ribbon seals. The report names three seabirds in jeopardy — the Kittlitz's murrelet, spectacled eider and ivory gull; and also finds the sea butterfly, a species of plankton, to be at risk of extinction. The minimum extent of Arctic sea is is smaller than ever, satellite data shows. Arctic sea ice generally reaches its annual minimum extent in mid-September. On September 3, ice extent dropped below the seasonal minimum for 2009 to become the third lowest in the satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This August, ice extent for the month was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007.
Posted 22 September 2010; 4:20:54 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Conservation and Wildlife, Environment and Landscape, Research, September 2010
Russia's new reservations in Arctic
(The Voice of Russia, 21 September 2010) -- Two more national parks and three natural reserves are expected to soon emerge in the Arctic. Particularly referring to the Bear Islands conservation on an archipelago in Yakutia, Russian Natural Recourses and Ecology Minister Yuri Trutnev said that new specially protected areas are planned to be established on the Chukotka Peninsula and in the Taimyr region. At present, Russia’s Arctic territories comprise ten reservations, one national park and two federal wildlife sanctuaries.
Posted 21 September 2010; 9:50:02 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Environment and Landscape, Russia, September 2010
Kivalina man finds first skate from Chukchi Sea
(Victoria Barber/Arctic Sounder, 9 September 2010) -- A large male Alaska skate washed up on the beach near Kivalina recently. The skate, whose scientific name is Bathyraja parmifera, is not in itself terribly remarkable, except that none of its kind has ever been spotted so far north. "It's hugely interesting," said Catherine "Kitty" Mecklenburg, a research associate for the Department of Ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences. She's currently stationed in Auke Bay. The skate is about 37.4 inches long and was discovered by Cyrus Koenig on a beach near Kivalina. The School of Fisheries and Ocean Science sent the skate to Mecklenburg for identification. "Whether dead or alive, this is the first skate reported from the Chukchi Sea," Mecklenburg said. The farthest north a skate has been spotted was in the Norton Sound more than a hundred years ago. The man who collected it, Lucien Turner, wrote in 1876 that people there had seen only a few others. Mecklenburg said that the Kivalina specimen looked worn, possibly from being carried along beaches by the waves. Since no skates have been caught by scientific or fishery trawling in the Chukchi Sea and this one was so worn, she said she thought it most likely was carried as a carcass in the current from the southeastern Bering Sea. The skate will be catalogued at the California Academy of Sciences, its tissue will be barcoded and stored in a permanent bank (GenBank) for future researchers. "We were just lucky someone noticed it who was interested and reported it," Mecklenburg said.
Posted 11 September 2010; 11:50:20 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, September 2010
Arctic ice melt threatens the iconic narwhal
(Randy Boswell/Postmedia News, 8 September 2010) -- The ongoing disintegration of Arctic sea ice cover is posing a particular hazard for the narwhal — one of Canada's iconic polar species — according to a new U.S. study that details how the slow-moving whale with the spiralled tusk is increasingly threatened by the proliferation of giant ice floes and other changes to the Arctic seascape. The danger is being dramatically highlighted this year by a colossal, 70 kilometre-long "ice island" that broke away from a Greenland glacier and is now drifting toward Baffin Bay — the principal habitat for the world's estimated 80,000 narwhals. The study has calculated that narwhals must surface for air at least every 1.4 km, meaning that whole pods of whales could drown if they swim too far out beneath large ice floes like the 250-sq.-km Petermann Ice Island — the single biggest free-floating mass of ice in Arctic waters since the early 1960s. The U.S. study, published last week in the journal Marine Mammal Science, was co-authored by biologists Terrie Williams and Shawn Noren of the University of California and researcher Mike Glenn from Sea World of San Diego. "Rapid changes in sea ice cover associated with global warming are poised to have marked impacts on polar marine mammals," the U.S. researchers state. They note that several of the narwhal's physical traits — such as muscles built for long journeys rather than rapid swimming speeds — could place the air-breathing creatures at serious risk in their increasingly ice-choked Arctic habitats. "We found that extreme morphological and physiological adaptations enabling year-round Arctic residency by narwhals limit behavioural flexibility for responding to alternations in sea ice," the study states.
Posted 8 September 2010; 11:14:33 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Conservation and Wildlife, September 2010
(Iceland Review, 7 September 2010) -- A walrus recently swam ashore at a beach in Flateyjardalur valley in the northeast, which is a rather uncommon sight in Iceland. Vignir Sigurólason, the district veterinarian in Thingeyjarsveit, told Morgunbladid that the animal is probably fully grown but he couldn’t tell whether it was male or female. According to the website of the Icelandic Seal Center, a walrus was last spotted in Iceland in Ófeigsfjördur fjord in the Strandir region in the West Fjords in August 2008. Before that a walrus was last seen at Hrafnbjörg in Arnarfjördur fjord on the other side of the West Fjords peninsula in 2005.
Posted 6 September 2010; 10:35:11 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Iceland, September 2010
Manitoba polar bear wanders 400 km south
(CBC News, 30 August 2010) -- A polar bear has created a buzz of excitement in the northern Manitoba community of Shamattawa. The bear was spotted Sunday swimming in the river, about 400 kilometres south of the Churchill tundra where the big white bears are typically found. Residents spotted the bear at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday, according to RCMP. Officers launched the police boat and made a patrol, locating the lone bear swimming in the river and drinking at the shore. "The bear appeared to be young, but was quite a good size … [and] the people in the community were very excited to see it," RCMP Sgt. Noel Allard said. "This is the first time anyone in the area remembers seeing a polar bear," Allard said after speaking to several elders in the community. Manitoba Conservation wildlife manager Daryll Hedman called the sighting rare but not an unheard-of occurrence. He believes the last time they were called about a polar bear in that community was in the mid-1990s, although some polar bears have actually been seen even further south. It is probably a teenaged bear, Hedman said, noting those are the ones that tend to explore. "They wander. They are built for travel," he said. RCMP members monitored the bear's movements until darkness fell and it left the area.
Posted 30 August 2010; 3:14:20 PM. Permalink
Tagged: August 2010, Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Provinces
Yukon salmon run 'cause for celebration'
(CBC News, 27 August 2010) -- While fishermen on British Columbia's Fraser River celebrate the largest sockeye salmon run in nearly a century, there is also jubilation along the Yukon's Alsek River where salmon returns are approaching historical records, say fisheries officials. "It's been a while since we've seen such good numbers there and with the poor numbers on the Yukon River this year, it is definitely cause for celebration," said Steve Smith, a federal fisheries manager for the Yukon region. As of this week, up to 8,000 salmon were counted in the Alsek River at Klukshu. That's double the 10-year average, and far more than forecast. Fishery experts said they can't explain the numbers, but before it's over, the Klukshu count could go as high as 24,000 fish, which may in fact be too high, said Smith. "You can get too many fish on the spawning grounds and they end up competing and end up with lower survival," he said. "So there's definitely fishing opportunity there and hopefully people take advantage of that." The fishery at Dalton Post is open for First Nations and recreational anglers but there is no word yet on how many have been taken.
Posted 29 August 2010; 12:09:16 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Fisheries, Yukon
Elk Island wood bison big hit in Russia
(Hanneke Brooymans/edmontonjournal.com, 5 August 2010) --EDMONTON - Elk Island National Park will send a second shipment of bison to Russia this year as part of a conservation project. Thirty wood bison will be sent in December to the Republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia, where biologists are attempting to re-establish a population. The republic's rugged and largely forested landscape already holds moose, caribou and elk. But the steppe bison that used to roam that area died out about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. Canada's wood bison are the closest living relatives of the steppe bison, and the Russians asked the Wood Bison Recovery Team at Elk Island in 1997 for their help. Elk Island staff were keen to participate, partly because a geographically separate population acts as a safeguard to protect the species as a whole. They agreed to donate 15 males and 15 females, but the Russians had to pay for transportation. A Sakha diamond company called Alrosa stepped forward with the necessary cash in 2006. Elk Island will also donate this year's batch of 15 males and 15 females, said Archie Handel, a resource conservation and public safety specialist with the park. The first herd seems to have done fairly well. All but three of the original 30 are alive. Last year, the cows gave birth to 10 calves, Handel said. There is no word on how many calves were born this year or in previous years.
Posted 21 August 2010; 8:41:12 PM. Permalink
Tagged: August 2010, Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Far East Russia, International, Russia
Polar bear threat to Solway geese
(BBC News, 16 August 2010) -- An Arctic expedition has confirmed fears that polar bears are preying on the eggs of barnacle geese who migrate to the Solway Firth each winter. During a recent trip, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) found evidence of bears eating thousands of eggs. The bears have turned to the eggs after being stranded on land in the summer months as a result of diminishing ice. The trust is concerned bird numbers could be devastated if the situation continues. Zoologist Brian Morrell, of the WWT Wetlands centre at Caerlaverock on the north Solway coast, recorded the increased polar bear activity while monitoring a barnacle goose colony on the Arctic island of Svalbard. He said 10 polar bears were seen roaming the colony, with one bear eating more than 1,000 eggs at one sitting. Of more than 500 nests on the island, fewer than 40 were successful and most of them had very small clutch sizes of only one or two goslings. Mr Morrell said: "The geese are very long-lived birds and ironically their survival rate is increased if they don't actually breed, especially the females. "But if their breeding continues to be affected in this way the population will quickly age, which threatens its stability and the future conservation of this bird which is very special to WWT." The entire population of Svalbard barnacle geese winter on the Solway Firth and return to breed in the Arctic each summer. Last winter only half the expected numbers of goslings were seen as the flocks returned to the Solway and it is thought the situation may be similar this winter.
Posted 19 August 2010; 4:38:21 PM. Permalink
Tagged: August 2010, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Norway
Aleutian sea lion decline spurs federal fishing restriction plan
(Elizabeth Bluemink/Anchorage Daily News, 3 August 2010) -- Federal regulators on Monday proposed new commercial fishing restrictions in the Aleutians to combat a steep decline of Steller sea lions in the western and central portion of the island chain. The federal National Marine Fisheries Service proposes to close all commercial fishing for Atka mackerel and Pacific cod in federal waters near Attu, the farthest island in the Aleutian chain. The agency is also proposing restrictions but not an outright ban on commercial fishing for mackerel and cod in the central Aleutians, west of Dutch Harbor. The proposed restrictions, detailed in a 836-page draft biological opinion published Monday, cover the remote fishing grounds stretching between Dutch Harbor and the Russian border. Fishing groups worry that the agency's recommendations are the end of mackerel and cod fishing in the Aleutians, worth tens of millions of dollars to fishermen. Environmentalists are worried that the fisheries service's proposal is inadequate to reverse the sea lion decline. "It closes 90 percent of the historic fishing grounds (in the Aleutians) to cod and more so to mackerel," said Brent Paine, executive director of United Catcher Boats, a Seattle-based trade group that represents a portion of the trawl fleet in the Aleutians, the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. But one environmental group said Monday that the agency didn't go far enough. The sea lion decline is serious enough that the fisheries service should use its authority to restrict fishing set to begin this fall rather than waiting until next year, according to Oceana, a marine conservation group. If the current fishery management in the Aleutians isn't working for sea lions, the agency is obligated to take immediate action, said Mike LeVine, a Juneau attorney for Oceana.
Posted 6 August 2010; 12:11:20 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, August 2010, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Fisheries, North Pacific, United States
Tourists attacked by polar bear
(NRK/Aftenposten via The Norway Post, 30 July 2010) -- Two Norwegian adventurers attempting to be the first to circumnavigate Svalbard in a kayak, were attacked in their tent by a polar bear on Thursday morning, and one of them was injured. Sebastian Plur Nilssen was pulled out of the tent by the bear and dragged 40 metres along the shore, before his companion Ludvig Fjeld managed to get out their rifle and shoot the bear. Nilssen suffered injuries to chest, head and neck, and was taken by helicopter to the hospital at Longyerbyen, where he was operated on Thursday evening. His wounds were reported to be moderate but not life threatening. The two 22-year-old Norwegians were travelling in two kayaks, and were attempting to be the first to kayak around the four biggest islands on Svalbard: Spitsbergen, Nordaustlandet, Edgeøya and Barents Island. The expedition started on July 6th and was estimated to last between two and three months.
Posted 2 August 2010; 1:30:20 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Conservation and Wildlife, July 2010, Norway
More than 1,000 seals spotted in north Iceland bay
(Iceland Review, 31 July 2010) -- The Icelandic Seal Center organized a seal counting initiative in the inner Húnaflói bay in northwest Iceland last weekend. A total of 1,054 seals were counted, compared to 1,019 last year. Thirty people participated in the initiative, 25 of whom were volunteers. Most people walked along the shore but others counted seals from horseback. A few of those counting were onboard the seal-watching boat Brimill, visir.is reports. The counting took two hours and started two hours before low tide. Areas were counted at the same time to prevent the seals from being counted twice. The initiative always takes place at the end of July when the weather is good and it is most likely to find seals lying on the beach. Click here to read more about the Seal Center and seal watching tours.
Posted 1 August 2010; 10:48:26 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar History, Conservation and Wildlife, Iceland, July 2010
Russia approves strategy for polar bear preservation - ministry
(RIA Novosti, 6 July 2010) -- Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Yury Trutnev has approved a strategy for polar bear preservation in Russia, according to a statement published on Tuesday. The ministry's statement said the strategy aims to determine the mechanisms of preserving animal populations in the Russian Arctic and reduce the negative impact of human activity in their habitats. "The strategy is consistent with a five-party agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears [achieved] in 1973 signed in Oslo (Norway) and an agreement between the Russian and the U.S. governments on the preservation and utilization of the Alaska-Chukotka polar bear population, concluded in Washington in 2000," the statement said. "It is also intended to ensure adequate populations of this unique animal in the changing climate in the Arctic and control the growth of human impacts on the marine and coastal ecosystems of the northern circumpolar basin," it continued. There are from 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears in the wild, including up to 7,000 in Russia.
Posted 21 July 2010; 10:33:10 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, July 2010, Russia
New monitoring system for the Barents region
(Rolleiv Solholm /The Norway Post, 2 July 2010) -- The Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs has been given the responsibility for setting up a new, full-spectrum monitoring and information system for the Northern sea and coastal areas (“BarentsWatch”). The work will be headed up by the Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA). The Norwegian Mapping Authority, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and many other specialist bodies will be involved in the work. The plan is for BarentsWatch to be developed in several phases, the first of which will involve the creation of a public information portal for the sea areas. The operations centre for the portal will be located in Tromsø. In parallel with the establishment of this open system, a closed, operational system will be developed to combine information from various sources in order to facilitate dealing with special situations. The plan is for this closed system to be linked to the Vessel Traffic Service centre at Vardø. BarentsWatch is envisaged as a vital tool for providing the Norwegian authorities with a coherent picture of what may be happening at any time in the very extensive sea areas in the North. This in turn will serve to strengthen Norway’s role as a responsible manager of the sea areas and thereby safeguard the substantial assets they represent. The Government gave advance notice in its High North Strategy of 2006 that it aimed to develop a full-spectrum monitoring and warning system for the Northern sea areas. This system will provide constant access to quality-assured data on the Northern sea and coastal areas, and ensure clear, up-to-date status information in the event of accidents, for risk evaluation of activities at sea, and for national and international climate, resource and environmental assessments. The system will also be capable of supporting Norwegian foreign policy.
Posted 14 July 2010; 11:46:43 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, July 2010, Norway
(YLE, 13 June 2010) -- Finland's rare wild forest reindeer may be facing total extinction, says the Finnish Hunters' Association. The group is calling for Finland and the EU to jointly protect the wild reindeer by further regulating the population of large predators. The sharp drop in the number of wild Finnish forest reindeer (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) is attributed to the growing numbers of wolves, lynx and bears that prey upon them. The Hunters' Association is calling for more permits to hunt these predators in parts of the country where they threaten wild reindeer. In Kainuu, in the northwest, the wild forest reindeer population has decline by half over the past decade. Counts now give an estimate of only about 800 of the animals left there. In addition to the wild forest reindeer in Kainuu, there are about 1000 in the old-growth forest areas of west-central Finland. The wild Finnish forest reindeer are the last population of their species in the world.
Posted 13 June 2010; 12:05:53 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Finland, Flora and Fauna, June10
Forest companies, conservationists join to protect Canada's boreal forest
(ENS, 18 May 2010) -- TORONTO, Ontario - In a deal that marks the coming together of two traditional adversaries, environmental groups and the member companies of the Forest Products Association of Canada today agreed to manage a broad swath of northern boreal forest to the highest environmental standards. Under the agreement, the 21 FPAC member companies, who manage two-thirds of all certified forest land in Canada, commit to the highest environmental standards of forest management within 72 million hectares (277,993 square miles) of public forests licensed to FPAC members from British Columbia in the west to Newfoundland and Labrador in eastern Canada. Nine conservation groups commit to global recognition and support for FPAC member efforts. "Do Not Buy" campaigns by the groups Canopy, ForestEthics and Greenpeace will be suspended while the agreement is being implemented. New logging will be suspended on nearly 29 million hectares (111,969 square miles) of boreal forest to develop conservation plans for threatened woodland caribou, while maintaining essential fiber supplies for uninterrupted mill operations. "This is our best chance to save woodland caribou, permanently protect vast areas of the Boreal Forest and put in place sustainable forestry practices," said Richard Brooks, spokesperson for participating environmental organizations and Forest Campaign coordinator of Greenpeace Canada. "Concerns from the public and the marketplace about wilderness conservation and species loss have been critical drivers in arriving at this agreement," Brooks said. "We have a lot of work to do together to make this agreement successful and we are committed to make it happen." "The importance of this agreement cannot be overstated," said FPAC President and CEO Avrim Lazar. "Together we have identified a more intelligent, productive way to manage economic and environmental challenges in the boreal that will reassure global buyers of our products' sustainability."
Posted 20 May 2010; 2:32:55 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Conservation and Wildlife, Environment and Landscape, May10, Resource Issues
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