Tag Archives: Alaska

Where have all the walrus gone?

Posted on October 12, 2014 | Comments Off on Where have all the walrus gone?

Yes, I wondered too. After all the kerfuffle at the beginning of the month there’s been rather dead silence [see my last post here]. So I Googled and found some tidbits.

Chukchi Sea walrus, June 2014. US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Chukchi Sea walrus, June 2014. US Fish and Wildlife Service.

An article a few days ago at one media outlet (October 8, 2014) asked someone from the WWF what happened to the ~35,000 females and calves onshore near Point Lay, Alaska — because really, who else would you ask? Or, perhaps more to the point, would anyone at USGS be expected to answer?

And one online media outlet found walrus specialists in Alaska unwilling to lay all the blame for the recent massive haulout at Point Lay at the feet of low Arctic ice levels due to global warming. See what you think.

UPDATE added below October 13, 2014
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Posted in Advocacy, Sea ice habitat, walrus

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Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – September 2014 map

Posted on October 6, 2014 | Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – September 2014 map

Here is the September 2014 follow-up to my post on the July 2013 track map for female polar bears being followed by satellite in the Beaufort Sea by the US Geological Survey (USGS) – “Ten out of ten polar bears being tracked this summer in the Beaufort Sea are on the ice.”

See that post for methods and other background on this topic, and some track maps from 2012 (also available at the USGS website here).

The USGS track map for September 2014 is copied below (Fig. 1).

At the end of September, with sea ice starting to rebuild, it appears there were 8 bears on the ice and three on land.

The situation for September was not very much different from August, except that two of the 11 bears (up from one) were on the ice in the Chukchi Sea in September, a phenomenon that was recently acknowledged to have affected the last population estimate for the Southern Beaufort subpopulation.

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Posted in Population, Sea ice habitat

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Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – August 2014 map

Posted on September 8, 2014 | Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – August 2014 map

Here is the August 2014 follow-up to my post on the July 2013 track map for female polar bears being followed by satellite in the Beaufort Sea by the US Geological Survey (USGS) – “Ten out of ten polar bears being tracked this summer in the Beaufort Sea are on the ice.”

See that post for methods and other background on this topic, and some track maps from 2012 (also available at the USGS website here).

The USGS track map for August 2014 is copied below (Fig. 1).

Compare this to July’s map (Fig. 4). The 20 bears from May (down to 13 in June) are now down to 11. All seven of the bears outfitted with glue-on satellite transmitters in April [either males or subadult animals] have either moved out of the area or their tags have fallen off or stopped transmitting. This means that all of the bears shown on the maps below are females.

At the end of August, nearing the minimum extent of ice for this year, seven bears were on the ice and only four were on land.
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Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – July 2014 map and subpopulation boundary issues

Posted on August 3, 2014 | Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – July 2014 map and subpopulation boundary issues

Here is the July 2014 follow-up to my post on the July 2013 track map for female polar bears being followed by satellite in the Beaufort Sea by the US Geological Survey (USGS) – “Ten out of ten polar bears being tracked this summer in the Beaufort Sea are on the ice.”

See that post for methods and other background on this topic, and some track maps from 2012 (also available at the USGS website here).

The USGS track map July 2004 is copied below (Fig. 1).

Compare this to June’s map (Fig. 4). The 20 bears from May (down to 14 in June) are now down to 13. All seven of the bears outfitted with glue-on satellite transmitters in April [either males or subadult animals] have either moved out of the area or their tags have fallen off or stopped transmitting. This means that all of the bears shown on the June and July maps below are females.

One bear has moved into Canadian territory and another is well into the Chukchi Sea. This is now known to be a typical rather than unusual phenomenon, and is pertinent to the bigger picture of what constitutes a discrete geographic subpopulation for polar bears.
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Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea: June 2014 map

Posted on July 3, 2014 | Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea: June 2014 map

Here is the June 2014 follow-up to my post on the July 2013 track map for female polar bears being followed by satellite in the Beaufort Sea by the US Geological Survey (USGS) – “Ten out of ten polar bears being tracked this summer in the Beaufort Sea are on the ice.”

See that post for methods and other background on this topic, and some track maps from 2012 (also available at the USGS website here).

The USGS track map for June 2004 is copied below (Fig. 1).

Compare this to May’s map (Fig. 2) – the 20 bears from last month are down to 14, and all seven of the bears outfitted with glue-on satellite transmitters in April [either males or subadult animals] have either moved out of the area or their tags have fallen off or stopped transmitting. This means that all of the bears shown on the June map below are females with satellite radio collars.
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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

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Chukchi-Beaufort sea ice atlas: check out polar bear habitat 1850-2013

Posted on February 19, 2014 | Comments Off on Chukchi-Beaufort sea ice atlas: check out polar bear habitat 1850-2013

It’s here – as promised and right on schedule — the sea ice atlas put together by University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) now has ice concentration maps for Alaska going back to 1850 — and for every year up to 2013. 

Several examples are included below: August 1850 vs August 1870, and April 1850 vs. April 1920 and April 2012.

For background, see my post announcing the site preview, which was then limited to 1953-2012 data, when it became available in late January.

Sea ice atlas_1850_Aug
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New interactive sea ice atlas for Alaska, 1953-2012: check out past polar bear habitat

Posted on January 27, 2014 | Comments Off on New interactive sea ice atlas for Alaska, 1953-2012: check out past polar bear habitat

University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) is offering a new interactive sea ice map (which they call an atlas), that looks interesting and potentially useful, announced at Alaska Dispatch over the weekend (January 25, 2014: “New sea ice map offers a long-term look at climate change”).

UAF Sea ice atlas_May 1958 screenshot

At the moment, the years and months available include January 1953 to December 2012. Oddly, 2013 data is not included. The sea ice atlas charts polar bear habitat for the Southern Beaufort and Chukchi Sea subpopulations (including the Bering Sea), as well as the western portion of the Northern Beaufort Sea subpopulation region.
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Polar bears at Kaktovik, Alaska not stranded due to retreating ice

Posted on September 30, 2013 | Comments Off on Polar bears at Kaktovik, Alaska not stranded due to retreating ice

“I’ve lived here all my life and there are more bears every year. I read stories about polar bears being on the brink of extinction because of global warming, look out of my window and start to laugh.” Tori Sims, Kaktovik (Mail on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2013).

As you can see, Kaktovik is in the news again. This tiny community sits on the edge of the Beaufort Sea, on Barter Island on the North Slope of Alaska (Fig. 1). It lies within the Southern Beaufort polar bear subpopulation, which has been classified as “declining” by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (Obbard et al. 2010).

The determination of “declining” was based on a small dip in population numbers between 2001 and 2006 (not statistically significant), plus a decline in body size and condition, and smaller litter sizes documented between 1986 and 2006 (Rode et al. 2010). A new population survey is underway.

Figure 1. Kaktovik, Alaska, from Google maps.

Figure 1. Kaktovik, Alaska, from Google maps. Click to enlarge.

There have been suggestions that bears become “stranded” along the Alaska coast near Kaktovik because of retreating sea ice, and that more bears present in this area in recent years are an indication that they are in trouble due to global warming.

I’ve compiled some quotes, maps, and links to stories, photos and videos about Kaktovik polar bears to show that this claim is false.

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Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat

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