By Clive Tesar
Academic conferences such as this one are filled with experts. Experts in anthropology, law, sociology, education and several more disciplines. How do we know they’re expert? Because the vast majority have letters after their name that tell us so – there are more doctors here than in your average hospital (though I wouldn’t want these doctors performing surgery on me). But when it comes to telling the world about the Arctic, are these the right sort of experts? Continue reading
Tag Archives: WWF
Denying climate change in Alaska and Kamchatka
By Clive Tesar
Climate change would be called undeniable, if it wasn’t for the fact that so many people do deny it. In southern Alaska, large percentages of republican voters deny that it’s happening, according to a large phone survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire. The survey was presented here at the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences in Akureyri Iceland. Continue reading
The rest of the world and the Arctic
By Clive Tesar
One of the struggles at the heart of discussion of the Arctic is over who has the right be there, and to use arctic resources. Most of the governments that ring the Arctic Ocean are busily working on claims that will extend their rights to the sea bed. The question is, who else has the right to be there once all the claims are adjudicated? The UN convention on the law of the sea doesn’t settle the questions of shipping, or even all the questions about fishing. Continue reading
Tracking megafauna in Iceland
The WWF Global Arctic Programme’s Head of Communications, Clive Tesar, attended the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences in Iceland in order to track trends and the latest information about the peoples of the Arctic, as they are so central to WWF’s conservation efforts in this area. While at the conference, he posted a series of blogs – this is the first.
By Clive Tesar
Locals say the snow should have disappeared from many of Iceland’s hills by now, but it has stayed on, disrupting local sheep pasturing patterns. Photo: WWF / Clive Tesar
Some people say WWF spends too much time talking about charismatic megafauna (a fancy way of saying interesting big animals). There is a reason we do that; if that’s what interests people then that’s how we start the conversation about conservation. In the Arctic, you’ll see us talking about walrus, about whales, and of course about polar bears. But I’m in Akureyri, Iceland right now to talk about another species of charismatic arctic megafauna – people. Continue reading
Another beautiful day in the Arctic
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
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Fostering understanding: US-Russian polar bear information exchange
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.
By Elisabeth Kruger
April 8, 2011
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
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
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
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 Helen Findlay
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
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