Tag Archives: Barrow

A ‘mass exodus’ of polar bears from Alaska to Russia has taken place, local residents claim

Posted on January 2, 2022 | Comments Off on A ‘mass exodus’ of polar bears from Alaska to Russia has taken place, local residents claim

An article in a UK newspaper yesterday contains a claim made by local residents that polar bears which used to hang around Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow) in western Alaska, are ‘moving to Russia’ (i.e. the Chukchi Sea) in a ‘mass exodus’. It’s certainly possible but if so, it should come as a surprise to no one and is good news for polar bears.

If the allegation is upheld by scientific evidence, polar bears will not have been pushed out of Alaska by lack of summer sea ice (i.e. ‘forced to migrate’) but rather pulled into the Chukchi Sea by abundant food resources that did not exist when summer ice cover was more extensive. It’s a big difference and it speaks to the benefits of less summer sea ice that no one wants to discuss.

Moreover, moving temporarily to where conditions suit them best is what polar bears do all the time: it’s not a new phenomenon, it’s a prominent feature of their biology (Crockford 2019).

Continue reading →

Comments Off on A ‘mass exodus’ of polar bears from Alaska to Russia has taken place, local residents claim

Posted in Life History, Population, Sea ice habitat

Tagged , , , , ,

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea resumes after a one year hiatus

Posted on May 20, 2018 | Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea resumes after a one year hiatus

Fourteen bears tagged by the US Geological Survey (USGS) on or near the central Southern Beaufort Sea coast in April 2018 (near Kaktovik) will be tracked online over the coming months.

The break in published USGS tagging data from March 2017 to April 2018 was the first since the project began in December 2009 but no explanation for the hiatus has been provided. It is therefore unclear whether no tagging occurred in spring 2017 or data was simply not published online. The last bears followed were tagged in March 2016.

Tranquilized_pb570_S Beaufort March 2014_USGS

In contrast to previous years, this spring all fourteen of the bears have glue-on ear transmitters, which means they are either adult males or juvenile bears rather than females (which are fitted with satellite collars):

“In collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service we are also experimenting with glue-on and ear tag satellite transmitters, which can be deployed on adult male bears and younger, still-growing bears.”

Continue reading

Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea resumes after a one year hiatus

Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tracking Western Alaskan polar bears in the Beaufort in Sept – all 3 chose Canada

Posted on October 5, 2016 | Comments Off on Tracking Western Alaskan polar bears in the Beaufort in Sept – all 3 chose Canada

All three polar bear females tagged in the Southern Beaufort Sea far west of Kaktovik (near Barrow) spent all or most of September onshore in the Northern Beaufort area of Canada.

beaufort-tracking-usgs-bear-movements-september-2016-lg-closeup

Continue reading

Comments Off on Tracking Western Alaskan polar bears in the Beaufort in Sept – all 3 chose Canada

Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ice maps vs. observations in the W. Arctic – polar bear habitat reality check

Posted on June 11, 2016 | Comments Off on Ice maps vs. observations in the W. Arctic – polar bear habitat reality check

Last Wednesday (8 June 2016), the US Coast Guard rescued walrus hunters from Shishmaref in the Bering Strait who got stuck in sea ice that is barely visible on sea ice maps. It’s a rare glimpse of what sea ice really looks like up close compared to what you see on the ice maps.

Watch the video here: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/embed/467959

[Unfortunately, the screencaps from the video, like the one below, are less impressive than the film. In the video, you can see the hunters walking on the ice around their trapped boat – the ice does not visibly move]

Shishmaref_ice_CoastGuard 02_8 June 2016

Have a look at the sea ice maps below for the day the incident took place. They show what appears to be hardly any ice in the area.

This is a good lesson for assessing what’s been going on in the Beaufort Sea a bit further east, where winds and currents have opened up a rather large patch of open water surrounded by considerable expanses of sea ice – at issue is the possible impact on polar bear spring feeding for April and May.
Continue reading

Comments Off on Ice maps vs. observations in the W. Arctic – polar bear habitat reality check

Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – new crop of tagged bears for 2016

Posted on April 9, 2016 | Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – new crop of tagged bears for 2016

Five more bears were tagged near the Southern Beaufort Sea coast last month, all in the western portion of the coast where Chukchi Sea bears are often encountered. They join the one female who seems to have made a den way out over the continental shelf, where she’s been all winter.

putting_collar_on_polar_bear_slider_USGS

This is the March 2016 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.”

Five tagged bears are relatively few compared to eight last spring, and thirteen in 2013 [added to 7 from the previous year for a total of twenty, which were down to 13 by June]  but the same as five tagged in 2014.  This spring, three of the USGS tagged bears have glue-on transmitters, which means they are either males or juvenile bears rather than females (which are fitted with collars):

“In collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service we are also experimenting with glue-on and ear tag satellite transmitters, which can be deployed on adult male bears and younger, still-growing bears.”

Continue reading

Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – new crop of tagged bears for 2016

Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged , , , , , , , ,