Circumpolar beings of light are fading. It's official now, the government released the reports on polar bears and walruses....
Circumpolar:
Pronunciation: \ˌsər-kəm-ˈpō-lər\ (The second upside down "e" is raised.)
Function: adjective
Date: 1686
1 : continually visible above the horizon (a circumpolar star)
2 : surrounding or found in the vicinity of a terrestrial pole (a circumpolar current) (circumpolar species)
Imagine a polar bear constellation, or radiant polar bears shimmering above the horizon. The constellation ursa major (great bear) can become ursus maritimas for a while.
Circumpolar Map:
To the left, the Chukchi Sea (inside the dashes); to the right, the Beaufort Sea. To choose from six reports, among them walruses, polar bears, and sea otters, go to FWS, Marine Mammals.
The polar bear reports tell of declining populations in the Southern Beaufort Sea.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) fought the Bush administration and won:
The Marine Mammal Protection Act requires that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service prepare stock assessments for marine mammals. To ensure that decision-makers have the most accurate information, stock assessments are supposed to be revised every year for imperiled marine mammals and every three years for other species. While the National Marine Fisheries Service — the agency responsible for whales, dolphins, and seals — has largely complied with this requirement, the Fish and Wildlife Service, responsible for polar bears, walrus, sea otters, and manatees, had completely ignored it.
In 2007 the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Wildlife Service and obtained a court order requiring the release of updated reports. Stock assessments for the Florida manatee were released today, and sea otter reports were issued last year.
The polar bear is currently listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act as a result of a petition and litigation by the Center. In September the Wildlife Service found that listing the Pacific walrus under the Endangered Species Act may be warranted. Pursuant to a settlement of a Center lawsuit, the Wildlife Service must make a final decision on whether to list the Pacific walrus by September 10, 2010.
The report states that, "Declining survival, recruitment, and body size and low growth rates during years of reduced sea ice during the summer and fall (2004 and 2005), and an overall declining growth rate of 3% per year from 2001-2005 indicates that the Southern Beaufort Sea population is now declining." (References omitted.) The authors stated that the Chukchi/Bering Seas stock estimate is unreliable, but using their best (conservative) judgment, the authors state that until 1992, the two stocks experienced very similar threats. After 1992, though, Russia also increased its harvest and there is greater loss of sea ice in the Chukchi/Bering Seas habitat.
Since harvest levels are not sustainable, the decline of the polar bear may well cause the decline of Native subsistence harvesting, if new limits are set. While the bear desperately needs all the help it can get, it is the case, once again, where we have allowed climate change to reach the point of denying ancient customs and sustenance to the indigenous people. In 2008, the native Inupiat village of Kivalina sued ExxonMobil Corp., among others, for "destroying Kivalina through the melting of Arctic sea ice . . . ." The court dismissed the case; the native Inupiat village (Kivalina) might appeal.
Judge Peter Hall recently reinstated a separate case, where several states sued several power companies, allowing the case to go forward. The plaintiffs argue that the huge emissions from the defendants´ power plants contribute to climate change and are a public nuisance.
R.L. Miller wrote a diary about the about the people losing their Pacific island home of Tuvalu. And I'm sure you've seen the many other excellent climate change diary writers, who are too numerous to mention, but a huge hat tip to all--just search for global warming or climate change if you want to explore this subject.
Although Native Alaskans have a treaty with the U.S. government, it is subject to protecting the polar bear from going extinct.
In an interesting sidenote, Article XI states, "Nothing in this Agreement shall be interpreted as limiting the right of each Contracting Party to take additional measures, including designation of specially protected natural areas, to protect polar bears in areas under its national jurisdiction." It might be interesting to see how far these communities could go in enacting their own protections for polar bear habitat.
The primary concerns for this population are loss of the sea ice habitat due in part to climate changes in the Arctic, potential overharvest, and current and proposed human activities including industrial activities [drilling for oil, among other things] occurring in the nearshore and offshore environment.
Which brings us to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar: from the CBD press release:
In addition to threats caused by global warming, polar bears and walrus face increased oil drilling and industrialization in their Arctic home. In the past two months, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has approved oil-company plans to drill in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in 2010, both without adequate environmental review.
Although a study by S.C. (Steve) Amstrup (a USGS polar bear researcher) in 2006 concluded that there was a not a "probability that a large number of bears (i.e., 25–60) might be affected by such a spill," a new report, which Amstrup also contributed to, concludes (p. 4) that "fewer than 23 oil spill-related mortalities could result in a population decline or increase the time required for recovery."
As for the law,
The Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) works to monitor and mitigate potential impacts of oil and gas activities on polar bears through incidental take regulations (ITR) as authorized under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Activities operating under these regulations must adopt measures to: ensure that the total taking of polar bears remains negligible; minimize impacts to their habitat; and ensure no unmitigable adverse impact on their availability for Alaska Native subsistence use. ITR also specify monitoring requirements that provide a basis for evaluating potential impacts of current and future activities on marine mammals.
As noted in FishOutofWater's diary, and in this report,
. . . positive feedback systems (i.e., the sea-ice albedo feedback mechanism) and naturally occurring events, such as warm water intrusion into the Arctic and changing atmospheric wind patterns, can operate to amplify the effects of these phenomena. As a result, there is fragmentation of sea ice, a dramatic increase in the extent of open water areas seasonally, reduction in the extent and area of sea ice in all seasons, retraction of sea ice away from productive continental shelf areas throughout the polar basin, reduction of the amount of heavier and more stable multi-year ice, and declining thickness and quality of shore-fast ice.
Simply put, everything is so interconnected that once sea ice begins to melt, it speeds up for the most part, although their has been some slowing in the melting rate of the Greenland glacier, as FishOutofWater's diary explains.
In addition,
it is predicted that the greatest declines in 21st century optimal polar bear habitat will occur in [the] Chukchi and Southern Beaufort Seas. Patterns of increased temperatures, earlier onset of and longer melting periods, later onset of freeze-up, increased rain-on-snow events, and potential reductions in snowfall are occurring.
Amstrup and others are mapping polar bear dens:
Polar bears construct maternal dens of ice and snow throughout their circumpolar range. In the Beaufort Sea region of northern Alaska, most dens have been found on the flat coastal plain. Hydrocarbon extraction is now occurring or planned along 100 miles of the Beaufort Sea coastline. If development pushes, as expected, into the National Petroleum Reserve, the scope of development could include up to 2/3 of the northern coastal region of Alaska. Human activities are a potential threat to denning polar bears, and resource extraction has generated significant concern for the welfare of denning polar bears and their habitats. While numbers of humans and their activities have increased in northern Alaska, numbers of denning females present along the coast also have increased. Therefore, the probability of disruption of maternal denning could increase in the future.
This last sentence is typical for scientists. Although anyone watching a documentary can see that the melting ice is having severe repercussions, because scientists are so conservative, Dr. Amstrup wrote this before mapping the area. For those of you who have the capability, there is a link to an ARC/INFO map on the same page.
I had intended to write up the report on the Southern Beaufort Sea, but this is long enough!
My fondest wish for 2010 is that we hold these celestial beings firmly to the earth, and stop their radiant beings from fading away.
May we all have a strong, joyful new year.