A study funded by NASA has recently determined that wildlife in the Arctic are responding to climate change in different ways. This has researchers worried that entire ecosystems could be disrupted. “The Arctic is showing more extreme indications of climate change,” said study co-author Gil Bohrer. The team analyzed data from the Arctic Animal Movement […]
Polar bears use dens to give birth and care for their young. The location of these dens is already endangered due to climate change and changing geographical landscapes. A new study has found that these dens are also disturbed by oil companies’ activities in the Arctic. The study examined disturbances between 1979 to 2016 and […]
A 4-year bioacoustic study of marine mammals in the northern Bering Sea will help scientists track the impacts of global climate change on Arctic ecosystems. Researchers with WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), Columbia University, Southall Environmental Associates, and the University of Washington wanted to understand how seasonal variation in sea surface temperatures and sea ice affect […]
On a July day several years ago, I sat on the spine of a hill in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range on Alaska’s North Slope and watched 15,000 caribou stream around me, some just a few yards away. I could hear their clicking feet, their untroubled breathing, and their rough coughs so closely […]
The first reports came in May. They were sparse, but enough to put seabird-monitoring coordinator Hillary Burgess on edge. “Here we go again,” she thought. By late June, almost every time she checked her inbox, yet more news of washed-up seabirds on the Alaskan coast greeted her. Volunteers had collected nearly 9,200 seabird carcasses by early […]
The White House is in talks to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The area has been under protection for decades. Under the Bureau of Land Management will offer leases to companies in areas where threatened animal species, including polar bears and caribous, have their home. The area is part of legislation […]
At least half of the world’s killer whale populations are doomed to extinction due to toxic and persistent pollution of the oceans, according to a major new study. Although the poisonous chemicals, PCBs, have been banned for decades, they are still leaking into the seas. They become concentrated up the food chain; as a result, […]
The Trump administration has announced it is considering a proposal to conduct seismic testing for oil and gas in the Arctic national wildlife refuge, the largest such preserve in the US. If the plan moves forward, vehicles with “shakers” – diesel-powered equipment that sends tremors through the landscape – will be deployed along Alaska’s northern […]