Tag Archives: beaufort

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 14

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
Blue sky morning! Light winds out of the east and temperatures are still hovering around -20 C. We plan to launch at half past 9 and set about preparing food and gear for a long day. When the weather allows, we can spend nearly 11 hours out on the ice, so everyone packs a lunch, a variety of snacks, and something to drink. Working in the cold definitely increases your caloric demand!
We file a flight plan to work the northwest this morning and launch. This will be my last day out on the ice, and it is shaping up to be a good one as we encounter a lone male just 10 miles out from Barter Island. We are safely on the ground with our sedated male by 10 AM and are back out searching within an hour. He is a known bear and in good condition.
largeadultmaleAs we fly out to where we had seen the yearlings and sow yesterday, we hit on a great set of tracks- a breeding pair. We end up following these tracks for over an hour as they make a frenzied spaghetti “pattern” over a 6 km radius. A few other single bears also cross through the scene, but in the end, we cannot find the track makers. We fly out about a mile from this intensively tracked area and do a circle to see where tracks are leaving. We see nothing, so we make a few more passes, but theses bears evade detection today. Breeding pairs can be notoriously difficult as they are often not moving in a directional manner or following habitat.
We decide to abandon this area and are soon on a set of single tracks which lead to another lone male. I remark that I would be happy to work with lone males all day as we settle in and work through this capture. He is marked and again in good condition, save for a few bite marks and scratches- common during mating season. Once we are aloft, it is time to head in for more fuel.
After “feeding” the helicopter, I decide to head due north and search more to the east as this will be our second to last day in this part of Alaska. We come across an active lead system about 56 km offshore. You can see steam rising from the open water and the leads are quickly skimming over. The winds are also clearly picking up from the east and you can see some snow drifting on the surface. We head east on the lead and start noticing a couple of sets of tracks, though they appear old. After about 35 minutes of flying, we learn that the drifting snow is simply making the tracks look old as we encounter another lone male. This guy is a new bear and an older one by the looks of his worn and stained teeth. He weighs in at 480 kg and appears very stout. He also shows signs of the breeding season with a few puncture wounds and one good cut on his side. Luckily bears seem to heal quickly! We capture him in a flat pan of newer ice and it is almost entirely flat. The lack of rough ice and the winds make for a fairly bitter processing on the ground and we all have to take breaks to re-warm our numb fingers from time to time.
It is already early evening when we lift off and continue our work, so I decide to head south east. After a bit of flying without success, we come across a good set of tracks and begin to follow them. This bear is heading to Canada and the same area we had so much luck with earlier in the season. About 10 miles west of the border, we find yet another lone male. I should have been careful what I asked for earlier in the day as it is always nice to encounter a range of bear genders and groups.
The capture is routine, but it is already past 7 PM when we begin our processing on the ground. This time we are in a perfect little pan of ice about 12 m in diameter and surrounded by a tall jumble of ice. The wind protection makes the work much more comfortable and we are happy to see that this is a marked bear as processing will be fairly fast. We are a happy crew as we depart the last bear of the day and make for Kaktovik. It is a beautiful evening for a sunset flight over the sea ice and the evening light is perfect. We land at 8:40 PM and I finally get to bed around midnight.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 13

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

Investigating our first successful polar bear seal kill site in the eastern Southern Beaufort Sea, Alaska.

Investigating our first successful polar bear seal kill site in the eastern Southern Beaufort Sea, Alaska.


WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
A heavy blanket of fog greats the morning light again- continued indication of open water and active ice offshore. The layer is relatively thin and should burn off by mid-day. We continue our operational plan of remaining rigidly flexible and slowly prepare for a late launch. By mid morning, visibility appears to be improving, so we load up and head down to the helicopter. In the short time it takes us to mobilize, the fog is right back down again. We load the helicopter with our gear that is not cold sensitive and head back to the bunkhouse.
An hour later we are back in the helicopter and heading to the northwest. We know of a collared female with a single cub heading our way, so decide to hunt in her general direction. The fog continues to give us a matrix of patches out on the ice and sends us more west than north.
As luck would have it, we encounter tracks that lead to our first seal kill site near a recently refrozen lead. An Arctic Fox skitters away from the carcass as we approach and it looks like a smaller bear also found these remains. Nothing is wasted out here, especially this time of year when everyone is coming off a long cold winter.
We continue on and locate the successful hunter not too far away- a lone male. He is in great condition and the capture and processing run smoothly. We are all glad to see that conditions appear to be improving for hunting.
Shortly after departing our male, we see our first family group with two yearlings! This is only the second encounter of the season, but at least we found some out here. As we circle around to assess their condition and safely position them on the ice, our friend the fog rolls in as if by design and we are forced to break off our pursuit. We will look for them again tomorrow, weather permitting.
Somewhat dejectedly, we start searching our way back towards home. Within 20 minutes, we find a mother bear with a new cub, and she is wearing a collar. Her behavior is clearly that of a bear that has been captured before. She is a good mom and stays with her cub, but she also coils and turns to face the helicopter- a good indication she is ready to jump. This bear decides against that tactic and we quickly have her sedated. This is an older female to be reproductively active and the oldest female captured so far this season at 24. She was first captured in 1992 and we have handled her several times over the ensuing years. She is an experienced mother and her cub is in good shape. We fit her with a new collar and head back to Kaktovik. It’s 8 PM when we land and this will be another late night. Our lab technician finally calls it a “night” at 1:30 AM.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 12

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

geoffsedativeWWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates, photos, and maybe some video too, and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
The day dawns brighter and the visibility has improved, but it is still snowing. We prepare for a late departure as we sip our morning drinks and listen to the weather forecast on the radio. The snow is supposed to let up by mid morning, but the winds are to increase to 20 knots from the West. It’s always something as they say.
We get lucky today and launch the helicopter around 11 AM. The wind is already increasing, but the snow has stopped and the visibility is up to about 6 km. We head to the northeast and begin our search. An hour passes without more than an occasional arctic fox track. It is always impressive to see the huge distances these fox cover over the sea ice in search of scavenged meals, often running parallel or directly with polar bear tracks.
About half past 12 we find a very fuzzy looking set of tracks. They are from a family group, but are drifted in and may be old. Having seen little else, we decide to investigate them for a few minutes and they soon lead us to a mother bear with two small cubs of the year. This is likely a family group from one of the two dens we discovered last week as we are fairly close to that location. The female does not react normally- most bears walk away or begin to run while she looks fairly nonplussed by it all. As we circle around her, she actually does two full hunting pounces with her front paws hammering on a suspected seal lair. She even began to lightly dig before deciding she might actually want to move away from the helicopter.
The capture goes smoothly and she is a very good mother and stays close to her cubs. The cubs look good, but are small for this time of year and their mother appears to be quite young and also fairly thin. She has likely not had a meal since last November, but is now out in prime hunting grounds. She is also a new bear for us, so has likely never seen a helicopter before or perhaps even people which also helps explain her initial behavior.
The wind continues to pick up while we are working and snow is starting to drift around our gear. After we have them processed, measured, marked and weighed, we dig out our best imitation of a day bed behind a nice pressure ridge and out of the wind. She only weighs 180 kg, so we easily carry her over in the weighing net then place her cubs snugly against her warm body as we ready to fly away.
We continue hunting to the northwest and encounter what we had hoped to see since arriving- active ice. A lead about two miles across had opened over the past two days and was already starting to refreeze. We follow this to the west as leads often concentrate bear activity, and for good reason, After seeing few seals or signs of seal activity since my arrival. I count over thirty seal breathing holes (holes in the sea ice that ringed and bearded seals maintain) in about as many minutes. We follow the lead for almost an hour without success before needing to head south for fuel. The winds are now blowing a steady 20 knots and we decide to call it a night. Polar bears seem to move less in these conditions and it is no fun working on the ground as the wind chill is bitter.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 11

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

Midday in Kaktovik with dense fog

Midday in Kaktovik with dense fog


WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
When I look out the window a little after 6 AM, the view is grim: snow and fog. The ice must be moving offshore and leads opening as we suddenly have a lot more moisture in the air, and the temperature is up to -15 C. After coffee and some cereal, we get ready to wait out the weather. I have a proposal to review for a graduate student in Alaska and plenty of other inside work to keep me busy. I also take advantage of the lull to connect with my family and do some laundry.
It also provides a chance to catch up with our U.S. Fish and Wildlife colleagues who are conducting capture work to the West in the Chukchi Sea. Their helicopter is down for routine maintenance and so they are also in their field office. The Chukchi work is relatively new and logistically much more challenging. That system is biologically more productive and the sea ice much more dynamic creating good spring polar bear habitat over a much larger area. This leads to the bears being more spread out and requires much more search effort to locate them.
This is the second year of capture and collaring work in the Chukchi, a data deficient area for polar bears. This also marks the year that the new U.S./Russia Bilateral Agreement will finally go into full effect, so having some fresh data on this population will be critical to inform this new management agreement. Both the USFWS and WWF are also working with our Russian colleagues to generate some concurrent research activity on Wrangell Island and along the Chukotka coast. Conducting similar capture work in Russia will be very expensive and logistically challenging even by Chukchi standards, but it is critical we gain a better understanding of this region.
The Chukchi work sounds like it is going well and our friends give us a good natured hard time about the small males we are catching in the SBS. Likely due to the greater biological productivity, greater diversity and abundance of prey, the males in the Chukchi system appear to grow much larger than their SBS cousins! The hunting records from the 1970’s appear to back up this trend as well. We don’t mind as we will handle twice the number of bears in the same length of season and we are all happy to be out in the field working with these amazing animals in such magnificent environments.
I put some red beans on the stove for dinner later tonight and set about making two pumpkin pies. Cooking for me is a hobby and a great way to focus on something other than the weather or the bears for a short time. Staying in a bunkhouse is great as it affords a communal atmosphere with field teams and everyone pitches in to cook and clean.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 10

From the field, General, Polar bears, , ,

Waiting out the fog in Kaktovik, Alaska.

Waiting out the fog in Kaktovik, Alaska.


WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
A low ceiling keeps us on the ground again in the morning. The winds have subsided and the temperatures have risen, bringing with them some fog. The crew is getting restless, as everyone would rather be out on the ice and we are six people living in a relatively small space. Good coffee, good cooking and great attitudes make a huge difference. George and I take advantage of the additional time to connect to the local high speed internet: literally sitting outside the village school in our truck sharing their wireless system before the school day begins. A chance to at least send and receive a few emails and see what is happening in the world.
We also have a chance to reflect on the season to date and put this year’s events in the context of the project’s long term data set. The most potentially striking observations this season and last, is the decreased encounter rates of older females, sows with yearlings, and sub-adult (recently independent) bears of either gender. Some analysis by USGS will be necessary to say if this is actually a trend of any significance, but it is a troubling observation and fits all too well with the declining Southern Beaufort Sea (SBS) population projection. Finding individual bears in poor condition in any one year is not necessarily significant. Bad years happen even when times are generally good for wildlife, and all age classes of bears sometimes die for a variety of reasons, especially dependent young.
The fog lets up, and we take advantage of the window to head back up in the air and out onto the sea ice. After two days of winds gusting to 35 knots, we are surprised by the lack of ice movement. We had expected, and hoped, to see new leads as this can concentrate bear hunting activity – but no such luck. The winds have scoured some pans down to glare ice as well. In short order we encounter five ringed seals hauled out in close vicinity to one another, more than we had seen in over a week and a welcome sign.
As we make our way to the north, we catch up to the fog and are turned eastward. Our pilot happens to see a set of tracks crossing a pressure ridge, and we are off in pursuit. Within five minutes we have a large male in sight, and he seems completely unconcerned by our presence. This behavior is not unusual for mature breeding males as they have few peers on the sea ice. Once we have him safely sedated, we discover this bear is a well known to us from previous captures. He is the largest bear weighed by scale in the Alaskan Beaufort at 590 kg in the fall of 1999 and he was born in the winter of 1983. Today he weighs in at 480 kg, a respectable spring weight for such a big guy, and the oldest bear we have captured this season. He is in great condition and has recently eaten as evidenced by a bulging tummy.
We depart to the SE and hunt towards the two dens we discovered previously along the coast, but it is not long before we cut another fresh set of tracks. This set also leads us directly to the track maker – a younger lone male, and also one I have seen before very near this location. I last caught this bear in 2007 during the filming of a CNN/Animal Planet piece with Jeff Corwin. At the time, this bear was only 6 years old, but he was determined to court a much older and larger bear who stood up and really let him have it. No harm was done, other than perhaps his ego! It was nice to see him as a much larger 8 year old. He is now tall, lanky, and lean as if from a recent growth spurt. He is also in reasonable condition for a male this time of year. The light winds we had all day suddenly stop and we have a beautiful evening to process and sample the last bear of the day. We land about half past seven, unload, hang and clean the gear, grab a quick dinner and enter the data. It is nearly midnight when I finish the last few tasks, print the labels and head up to bed.
WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates, photos, and maybe some video too, and live the life of a polar bear biologist.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 9

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
No need to get up too early as the sound of wind wakes me before 6am. It will be another day to catch up on work and make plans for the coming week. Blowing snow is reducing visibility to 2 km or less at times. This will give me an opportunity to test out my new mini-HD video equipment and send along some footage soon.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 8

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
The weather has finally caught up to us this morning and its one of my least favorite North Slope forecasts: snow and blowing snow. Visibility is down to two miles and the snow is quickly forming new drifts around the village, so our decision is easy. It is no time to be out flying and is a welcome day of rest for our pilot. It will be a time for the rest of the crew to catch up with paperwork, label samples, and restock our pantry. As soon as the winds let up, and the snow subsides, the searching will be excellent out on the sea ice as any tracks will be fresh and the track maker not far ahead.
As I turn into bed tonight, the winds are rattling the bunkhouse and have picked up considerably. We are in a full Arctic spring storm and the sea ice will look quite different when the weather finally settles- which could be in the morning, or could be days away.
WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates, photos, and maybe some video too, and live the life of a polar bear biologist.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 7

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

Caribou and wolverine tracks, 15 miles north of land in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska.

Caribou and wolverine tracks, 15 miles north of land in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska.


WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
I awaken to a grey morning. The visibility is still good, but there is high overcast and the light is flat. Not the best conditions for searching, but still worth heading out on the ice. We plan to hunt to the northwest today after checking on the den we found to see if the family has departed.
On our way out to the den site, we bump into a second likely maternal den about 10 miles west of the other location. Tracks are present and there is some recent scat, or feces, in the area, but there are no obvious tracks leading to the ice.  We take a good waypoint on the GPS and will keep a close eye on this one as well. As we approached the second den, no one was outside and there were also no tracks leading away, so we departed to continue our search back to the west.
After about an hour of searching in flat light conditions, we happen on a single bear we believe is a recently weaned two year old or small sub adult. Regardless, it looks thin from the air as we set up for a capture. Once on the ground, we are surprised to see a very thin yearling. In this part of the Arctic, a yearling should still be with its mother. Unfortunately, there is little information as to what happened, but plenty of questions.
A yearling alone, and in such poor condition is truly a ghost bear. Its chances of surviving are very slim. Once again reminding me of how difficult life can be for these seemingly invincible animals and something I had not seen in a decade of capture work.
We return to Kaktovik for refueling then resume our search efforts further to the northwest. After several hours of searching without much sign, we stumble across a small pan of multi-year ice with a hill near the center. While there are no clear tracks coming or going, the area on the pan is covered with the old tracks of a family group. The striking feature is clear slide marks were small polar bears had repeatedly climbed the hill and slid down. It looks similar to a river otter playground. Bears had spent some time here, and they apparently enjoyed themselves.
A bit further along we encounter a red spot in the snow and land to check it out. We assume it is our first kill site and George is hoping to start sampling prey remains as a routine part of his work. After a quick look around, it is clearly not a kill site, just a blood trail. We pick back up again to investigate from the air. We backtrack about 100 meters to where the trail begins. George and I both go outside to investigate while the helicopter stays running. It is clear there was an altercation between two animals and we assume it must have been two bears, however there are only two sets of track in the area: polar bear, and wolverine. Once more, we have more questions than we can find clues to answer and we have to move on.
We are beginning to wonder about this day when we finally discover another breeding pair. They look healthy and this time there are no surprises. The male turns out to be our oldest catch of the season at 25. This is very encouraging as I am beginning to have some concern about the potential population age structure from the animals we are encountering. Most of the bears we had captured to date were younger than 12, and I recall a similar concern last season. As a population is stressed, you would expect the impacts to be seen first among the most vulnerable segments of the population; young bears and old bears. The female is much younger but has had cubs before. She is half his size, but both appear to be doing well. It was a good way to end our day on the ice.
WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates, photos, and maybe some video too, and live the life of a polar bear biologist.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 6

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

Short range Distant Early Warning site at Lonely, Alaska

Short range Distant Early Warning site at Lonely, Alaska


WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
We awake to some very light snow, just enough to help obscure older tracks, but not so much as to keep us on the ground. Our plan is to search to the east northeast up to the Canadian border.
Just to give you an idea of the typical day in the life of a field biologist: we start the day about half past 6 AM and need to be ready to load the helicopter by 9 AM, weather permitting. The typical day includes about ten hours out on the ice, including one refueling stop. We generally land between around 8-9 PM, unload the helicopter, clean and dry gear, eat dinner, and enter data. Our days end around 11 PM, later if we capture a large number of bears. This is the routine for the duration of the field season except for weather days, so 12 hour work days are the norm and there are no scheduled weekends!
About 35 miles to the east northeast, we encounter a family group, but the sow is not reacting normally. As we circle around to get a better perspective and load a dart, the sow is just pacing with her coy. We soon see the problem- she has a second coy who has not survived and is lying frozen nearby. The mother is clearly reluctant to leave, though her condition also looks suspect. Once we have her and the remaining cub safely sedated, we understand what has happened. The female is one of the thinnest George or I have seen in a combined two decades of capture experience. If she does not find prey soon, she will not survive, nor will her remaining cub. It could be that she just drew the short straw this year as nature is not forgiving, but the USGS team will also scrutinize her samples for signs of stress or disease. We depart this group in a very somber mood. Polar bear cub survival in this part of the world has declined from about 60% survival to as low as 40% in recent years. Cubs are routinely lost in the first year; we just rarely witness the actual death in the field.
After we refuel, we begin searching to the northwest. We continue our work and encounter a breeding pair just as we started searching back towards Barter Island. We are a bit surprised to encounter little to no ringed or bearded seal activity since arriving in the east. The ice is still very tight in this area with few leads, so we hope they are present, but just using lairs (simple snow caves built in areas of active ice) beneath the snow. It is also unusual to have covered so much area and so many tracks without coming across a single kill.
WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates, photos, and maybe some video too, and live the life of a polar bear biologist.

Tracking the Beaufort bears: Day 5

From the field, General, Polar bears, ,

Polar bear paw print in the snow

Polar bear paw print in the snow


WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates and live the life of a polar bear biologist.
By Geoff York
Second day of capture work and the good weather continues to hold, though high clouds are moving in from the west all day. George and I head out again and bring a new USGS biologist along for training. We fly east and near shore all morning, but turn up little but tracks of animals we cannot locate. We could still use some snow.
Just as we start to turn back from the Canadian border, we spot a female polar bear with two cubs of the year, often referred to as coys. We carefully position them for capture and quickly have them safely sedated. The mother bear and both cubs are in great condition, the weather is perfect, and the Brooks Range is in full view to the south. Family groups provide critical information on the reproductive rates and rearing success of wildlife populations and key indicators for population trends.
On the way back to Kaktovik for fuel, we spend some time searching the coastal bluffs for evidence of denning. Polar bears prefer high bank habitat along the coast that hold consistent snow drifts to dig their dens, and there are many bluff areas along the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Our plan pays off as we spy a polar bear female with two new cubs sunning themselves a few hundred yards from their maternal den. We make a quick mark of the den location on our GPS and quickly depart. We will try to revisit the site once the family has moved off to the sea ice. Understanding where polar bears den is critical to protecting these habitats and ensuring viable populations.
We refuel and spend the balance of the day further out to the NE. Once again we finally encounter a bear, this time a large solitary male, near the Canadian border. The darting goes smoothly and we are able to run through a routine processing operation. This bear weighs in
At 398 kg and would easily weigh an extra 200 kg in the fall. He has several new minor wounds on his face and neck, very common around breeding season both from sparring with other males and from interacting with females too.
WWF’s polar bear coordinator, Geoff York, keeps up his field knowledge with trips out onto the ice to check on the condition of the bears. This year, he is keeping a daily blog of his experiences over two weeks. Keep visiting this blog for regular updates, photos, and maybe some video too, and live the life of a polar bear biologist.