Tag Archives: WWF

Starting to fill in the information gaps on polar bears

General, Polar bears,

WWF International Arctic Programme polar bear specialist, Geoff York, is currently in the Chukchi Sea area with the US Fisheries and Wildlife Service, conducting research into the status of polar bear populations in the area. This is the first of several blogs from him during his time there.
By Geoff York
Monday, April 19, 2010, 4.00am, Alaska

Map of the Chukchi Sea area

Map of the Chukchi Sea area


When you travel within or outside of this huge state, you get used to very early or very late flight arrangements. This morning I’m catching the first flight to Kotzebue, a moderate-sized town just north of the Bering Strait and a regional transportation hub. The sun is already rising as we cross the Alaska Range just south of Denali- even after 20 years of living up here, this is an impressive view. I’ll have about 4 hours of airport appreciation time in Kotz before jumping on a small plane to the closest airstrip near the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) field camp for Chukchi Sea polar bear research. Once on the ground I’ll have an 80 kilometre (50 mile) road trip by truck to finally reach the team and helicopter. This marks my twelfth consecutive capture season in Alaska. The FWS team began this season on March 13 and has already captured 47 bears to date.
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Daniels takes a dip

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By the Catlin Arctic Survey Explorer Team

Today Ann had her first unscheduled dip in the Arctic Ocean. With the amount of thin ice that the Explorer Team have been crossing over the past few days it was inevitable that one of them was going to get wet sooner or later. Since Ann is the lightest of the three she normally takes the lead when crossing thin ice but that also means she is constantly in the ‘Guinea Pig’ role. She managed to avoid total immersion but an arm and leg went through the ice into the water below. Ann was able to get herself to some firmer ice and once there simply had a roll around in the snow to help absorb any excess moisture.

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Moving ice, fissures and resupply

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By the Catlin Arctic Survey Explorer Team
To call the last 14 days eventful for the Catlin Arctic Survey Explorer Team would be the grossest sort of understatement. Two weeks of both the weird and wonderful culminated in a rude awakening on Thursday morning when the ice pan on which they were camped started to break up.
Charlie Paton describes the situation in more detail. “We heard a crack, a few bangs and then suddenly the ice started to break apart. It all happened very quickly and was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.”
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Polar bear patroller: the dog who is ‘star of the North’

General, Polar bears,

Brownie, a 5 year old husky cross, can boast to be the dog who’s on top of the world. Well, furthest north at any rate. She’s on polar bear alert guarding the scientists and support team of the Catlin Arctic Survey way out on the floating sea ice of the Arctic ocean.
By Rod Macrae

Brownie is an early warning detector for polar bears. She spends her days watching the horizon and sniffing the wind for bears. The team recruited Brownie to come with them onto the frozen ocean because it is a popular place for polar bears to hunt for food, mostly seal.
Paul Ramsden, Ice Base manager, said “She’s done a fantastic job so far. No bear has come anywhere near the place. But that’s because Brownie’s done her job as our deterrent and our early warning system.
“As temperatures begin to rise at this time of year, the possibility of open water near the Ice Base increases. Open water encourages seals to surface, and that attracts the attention of polar bears. Brownie will become even more important to us as the weather gets warmer.”
“Sometimes she does head out of the camp to accompany the scientists out doing their work. That’s when she gets to pull a sledge, which she seems to love.”
Brownie has been trained for her job in the northern Canadian outpost of Resolute.
“It takes quite a lot of training to become a good polar bear watch dog. You need a brave dog that does not just run off and hide in the tent when it senses a polar bear! Brownie is a really brave dog.”
The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 is focused on what is widely considered to be the ‘other’ carbon problem beyond climate change – that of ocean change, researching how greenhouse gases could affect the marine life of the Arctic ocean. Laura Edwards, a researcher from Bangor University in Wales, and Rod Macrae, Head of Communications at Geo Mission, are blogging for WWF throughout the Survey from the Catlin Arctic Survey Ice Base in Nunavut, northern Canada – please come back regularly for their updates.

Novel use for chill box is boost for science survey

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How do you keep water samples from freezing on an arctic expedition? Put them in a chill box!
By Rod Macrae

It’s no picnic surviving on an arctic expedition in the depths of winter and early spring. But if you are doing a scientific survey at the same time, it is a lot more challenging. For the explorers in the Catlin Arctic Survey team trekking across the floating sea ice of the Arctic ocean, a picnic cool box is a vital piece of kit.
Their mission required them to collect water samples and somehow keep the water from freezing, despite these samples having to be continually stored on their sledges in temperatures below minus 30 degrees Celsius. It’s critical for the samples to be kept liquid to enable the scientists to do their research effectively. This clever little innovation has helped the expedition keep these vital water samples from freezing for 18 days in the polar ‘freezer’.
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At the Ice Base – the research begins

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By Laura Edwards
Based on first year sea ice approximately 1.5 m thick and about 10 km from the rugged coastline of Isachsen on Ellef Rignes Island the location of the Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 Ice Base site is stunning. It’s quite surreal here, like being on a different planet and it’s not as flat as you might think. The ice we’re camped on is flat but to the north and south of camp there are regions of multi-year ice which have ridged up over time and created a bizarre but beautiful rubbled ice landscape.

Our sample site is approximately 2km west of camp and initially we used a skidoo to get all the equipment out there to take the samples of water chemistry, biology and underlying physical measurements (currents and temperature profiles). As well as the water studies, we are also taking ice core samples for analysis and atmospheric studies to help with the determination of CO2 flux through the sea ice. The skidoo, like many mechanical and digital systems, did not like the extreme cold and broke down – and it chose to do so on the day a storm developed whilst we were at the sample site. We ended up having to return to camp during the storm on foot. The temperature at the ice base had been around -25 to -40 °C for our first week in camp but the night of the storm, with winds gusting up to 60 mph, temperatures that night reached below -60 °C with wind chill.
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Out to the Arctic

General, Polar bears,

The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 is focused on what is widely considered to be the ‘other’ carbon problem beyond climate change – that of ocean change, researching how greenhouse gases could affect the marine life of the Arctic ocean. Laura Edwards, a researcher from Bangor University in Wales, and Rod Macrae, Head of Communications at Geo Mission, are blogging for WWF throughout the Survey from the Catlin Arctic Survey Ice Base in Nunavut, northern Canada – please come back regularly for their updates.
By Laura Edwards

Early on Wednesday 3rd March I headed to Aberdeen airport to begin my journey to the sea ice of Deer Bay off the coast of Isachsen, Ellef Rignes Island, Canada. I was finally on my way to carry out some novel and exciting fieldwork attempting to answer questions on the topic of ocean acidification.
I was nervous about the fieldwork and how I would cope in the cold temperatures (averaging around -30 to -35 °C at this time of year) but also excited about the prospect of being involved in the Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 and obtaining rare data in this arctic location during the winter-spring transition period. There are very few measurements on ocean acidification at this time of year in the Arctic and yet it’s a very interesting period when there are large changes occurring within the biology, chemistry and sea ice of the Arctic ocean.
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Alaska/Chukotka walrus and polar bear community exchanges

General, Polar bears, ,

In early February, WWF and the US Fish and Wildlife Service partnered to facilitate community-based meetings between village conservation leaders from Chukotka, Russia and Alaskan communities along the Chukchi Sea coast. Although the people who live across the Chukchi Sea from each other are relatively close in miles, our Chukchi partners had to travel around the world to reach the other side and meet their neighbors for the first time.
For WWF, this was also an opportunity to highlight the work of the Chukchi Umky Patrol Program we support in Russia, a grassroots effort to minimise negative polar bear human interactions. The Umky program has, in addition, cultivated efforts to eliminate poaching and manage a relatively new problem: walrus hauling out near villages in huge numbers. Continue reading →

COP15: Finishing with a flourish

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During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF had an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, there was a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
By Clive Tesar
The Arctic Tent comes down today, on the same day that President Obama comes to town to join other world leaders in the negotiations. There is hope that he will be the catalyst for a deal that truly does give the world what it needs, levels of emission reductions that keep the global average temperature rise at well under 2 degrees.
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COP15: The Arctic in Copenhagen and the world

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During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
By Clive Tesar
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