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Another beautiful day in the Arctic

6 May, 2011General, Polar bearspolar bears, WWFuser

In early April, WWF’s Bering and Arctic Sea program officer, Elisabeth Kruger, traveled to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service field office in the Arctic to assist with interpretation for our Moscow colleague, Natalia Illarionova.
In these blog posts, Elisabeth describes her experiences on the Arctic slope and the work that the FWS does to help us understand the Chukchi Sea polar bear population.
The study is conducted over US waters, just miles from Russia. Exchanges such as this between Russian and American biologists will help to foster a similar research program in Russia.
Read the previous post here.

April 12, 2011
By Elizabeth Kruger
This is the last day Natalia and I will be flying with the team before we head back to Anchorage, so we are happy to see blue skies in the morning. After breakfast, we prep for the day and pack up the helicopters.
We see track after track all morning, but all of them appear to be old. We flew northwest today, in search of larger male bears. They have definitely been spending a lot of time here, but we have yet to sight a bear.

Ice views from the helicopter. Photo: Elizabeth Kruger

Continue reading →

Fostering understanding: US-Russian polar bear information exchange

6 May, 2011General, Polar bearsindigenous people, polar bears, WWFuser

Photo: Natalia Illarionova

Natalia Illarionova, a polar bear biologist at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Nature Conservation and a member of the Marine Mammal Council, arrived from Moscow with the help of a WWF travel grant one week ago to learn about the US Fish and Wildlife Service polar bear research team’s mark-recapture study techniques. I am excited to be joining her and the USFWS team near Kotzebue tomorrow to provide linguistic support. Continue reading →

Catlin Arctic Survey: Spring blooms in the Arctic

28 April, 2011GeneralWWFuser

WWF is supporting the research of the Catlin Arctic Survey. This year’s research includes an expedition across the ice, as well as an ice base, both in the far north of Canada. The main purpose of the mission is to gather data on the changing Arctic Ocean currents.
Read an article on the WWF Global Arctic Programme website announcing the launch of the 2011 Catlin Arctic Survey here.

By Dr Victoria Hill
It’s exciting to be here in the Catlin Ice Base at the seasonal change from winter to spring. Warmer temperatures make living on the sea ice much more pleasant, and the plankton world is feeling the coming of spring too. Continue reading →

Catlin Arctic survey video: An arctic algae farm

19 April, 2011GeneralWWFuser

WWF is supporting the research of the Catlin Arctic Survey. This year’s research includes an expedition across the ice, as well as an ice base, both in the far north of Canada. The main purpose of the mission is to gather data on the changing Arctic Ocean currents.
Read an article on the WWF Global Arctic Programme website announcing the launch of the 2011 Catlin Arctic Survey here.
Dr Oliver Wurl is part of the Catlin Arctic Survey team for 2011. He is researching the impact of ocean acidification on the “forests of the oceans” — phytoplankton (a form of algae), and explains his experiments in the video below.

Catlin Arctic Survey: Dr Helen Findlay talks ocean acidification

16 April, 2011Generalcatlin arctic survey, WWFuser

Dr Helen Findlay gathering water samples with a Niskin bottle

If you want to understand how ocean acidification might impact some marine creatures you need to do two things. First go to the seaside and find a seashell. Then go to a shop and buy a fizzy drink, any brand will do. Put the seashell in the fizzy drink and leave it for a few days. You will see that it is starts to dissolve away.
A similar process is happening in the oceans today. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is being absorbed into the ocean. When carbon dioxide dissolves in water it forms carbonic acid. Fizzy drinks are carbonated – they have carbon dioxide bubbled into them and this makes them acidic. Carbon dioxide is taken up into cold waters more rapidly and so the process of ocean acidification affects the coldest seas, such as the Arctic Ocean, the most. Continue reading →

In search of the extraordinary: Chukchi Sea polar bear research

13 April, 2011General, Polar bearschukchi sea, polar bears, WWFuser

Geoff York, the WWF Global Arctic Programme’s resident polar bear expert, is in the field in the Chukchi Sea, Alaska, working with bears for the 14th year in a row. Read his previous posts here and here.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Finally – a banner morning: clear, nearly calm, and should reach +5F by this afternoon. The team was joined by a second small helicopter late last night that will act as a spotter and may also haul extra fuel later in the season when the sea ice become too broken for the fixed wing to land. We meet at 8 AM for our briefing and plan to launch around half past ten. We will also have our fixed wing spotter/fuel plane today, so pilot coordination will be important.
Following the high winds this week, we are expecting that any old tracks will be well drifted, which should help us. However, snow scour (loss of snow) and hard pack will make new tracks harder to find. Good thing we will have a few more eyes on the ice today.

Polar bear tracks on hard-packed snow are difficult to see from the air and even more difficult to follow any distance.

Continue reading →

Catlin Arctic Survey: Dr Ceri Lewis talks copepods

10 April, 2011Generalcatlin arctic survey, WWFuser

WWF is supporting the research of the Catlin Arctic Survey. This year’s research includes an expedition across the ice, as well as an ice base, both in the far north of Canada. The main purpose of the mission is to gather data on the changing Arctic Ocean currents.
Read our previous posts here, here, here, here and here, and an article on the WWF Global Arctic Programme website announcing the launch of the 2011 Catlin Arctic Survey here.
By Dr Ceri Lewis

Copepods: Faster than Usain Bolt. Photo: Martin Hartley, Catlin Arctic Survey

Did you know there are 200 billion more copepods than people on the planet, and even though they are small, their combined mass is over 400 times that of the human population? At their fastest, they travel a hundred times faster than Usain Bolt. Continue reading →

Watching and waiting with windy weather: Chukchi Sea polar bear research

7 April, 2011General, Polar bearsalaska, chukchi sea, polar bears, WWFuser

Geoff York, the WWF Global Arctic Programme’s resident polar bear expert, is in the field in the Chukchi Sea, Alaska, working with bears for the 14th year in a row. Read his previous post here.

Sunday, April 3, 2011
It’s a blue sky day this morning, with the looming threat of worsening conditions later this afternoon. From the weather service map, we are in the middle of the only stretch of coast across the entire state of Alaska (more coastline than the rest of the US combined) that is under visual flight rules (VFR). Limited visibility from snow, blowing snow, or fog dominates the weather elsewhere. We find ourselves in the gap between a high pressure system over Chukotka and two deep lows pushing across the Bering Sea. With any luck, we’ll escape the snow – but we will not escape the wind. Continue reading →

The journey north: Chukchi Sea polar bear research

6 April, 2011General, Polar bearschukchi sea, polar bears, WWFuser

By Geoff York
Fourteen years. It’s difficult to believe that this will be my fourteenth consecutive year conducting polar bear captures in Alaska. From my first fall capture season in 1998, I always assume that each season and year will be my last such opportunity. Why? Because so few people have the opportunity to work out on the frozen seas, and fewer yet with an animal as magnificent as the polar bear. It is both an opportunity and a real honour and one I do not take for granted- every flight, every day, every year.
Thursday, March 31
Today I am flying north from Anchorage to a field camp just north of Kotzebue along the shorelines of the Chukchi Sea. I’ll be joining the US Fish and Wildlife Service Chukchi research team led by Dr Eric Regehr and Dr Karyn Rode. They have been at the field station for two weeks and have captured 29 bears – mostly family groups and young single animals, but all in good condition.
This will be their 4th year of research in the Chukchi Sea, an area where we have significant need for more information on the shared polar bear population with Russia. The data gathered through this project will shed significant light on the current status of these bears and inform future management decisions. It will also expand our understanding of how polar bears in different geographic areas are responding to rapid changes in sea ice. Additional research will be required on the Russian side in coming years to complete this story, and both WWF and the USFWS are working with partners in Russia and Chukotka to fill that knowledge and capacity gap. Continue reading →

How sampling holes allow access to vital information

2 April, 2011GeneralWWFuser

WWF is supporting the research of the Catlin Arctic Survey. This year’s research includes an expedition across the ice, as well as an ice base, both in the far north of Canada. The main purpose of the mission is to gather data on the changing Arctic Ocean currents.
Read our previous posts here, here, here and here, and an article on the WWF Global Arctic Programme website announcing the launch of the 2011 Catlin Arctic Survey here.

Dr Helen Findlay, of Plymouth Marine Laboratory, describes the hard work that went into creating the largest sampling hole yet, and how the ice base scientists use these access points to the sea below. Continue reading →