tagged w/ Polar Bears
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Belugas trapped in icy Arctic waters at risk of death
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 2:45 PM EST, Wed December 14, 2011
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
More than 100 Belugas are trapped in ice flows off the Bering Sea
Unless the whales are rescued soon, they could die from suffocation or starvation
Local authorities have sought help from Moscow
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Moscow (CNN) -- Prisoners in ice, more than 100 Beluga whales in far eastern Russia risk death unless rescued soon.
The flock of gentle ghost-white whales was trapped in ice floes in the Sinyavinsky Strait off the Bering Sea near the village of Yanrakynnot, said a statement from the Chukotka Autonomous Region.
Fishermen reported that the whales were concentrated in two relatively small ice holes, where, for now, they can breathe freely. But the Belugas' chance of swimming back to water is slim due to the vast fields of ice over the strait.
The whales have little food, and the ice flow is increasing, the statement said. They are at risk of rapid exhaustion and, ultimately, death by starvation or suffocation. Trapped whales are also susceptible to predators like polar bears and killer whales.
The Chukotka Autonomous Region government has sought help from federal authorities and asked for an icebreaker to help rescue the Belugas. A rescue tug, Ruby, was in the area helping a Korean cargo ship that ran aground on the southern coast of Chukotka but it would take one and a half days for it to reach the whales, the statement said.
Trapped belugas are a frequent phenomenon in the Arctic waters but are not often detected by people. In Chukotka, the last relatively successful case was recorded in 1986, when an ice-breaker helped free trapped beluga whales.
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Belugas trapped in icy Arctic waters at risk of death
By the CNN... more
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It's the next step in "Polarbeargate" – one of two scientists whose report on dead polar bears in the Arctic helped make the animal a potent symbol of climate change has been asked to take a lie detector test as part of an investigation by US agents.
The 2006 report from American wildlife researchers Jeffrey Gleason and Charles Monnett told of dead bears floating in the Arctic Ocean in 2004, apparently drowned, and focused attention on the vulnerability of the animals to the melting of the Arctic ice, which they need for hunting. Widespread references were made to the dead bears and they figured in the film An Inconvenient Truth, made by Al Gore to highlight the risks of global warming.
But earlier this year, allegations were made within the US Department of the Interior that acts of scientific misconduct might have been committed in relation to the report, and the Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) began an inquiry.
Mr Monnett, who works for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, a Department of the Interior agency, became the focus of the inquiry and was interviewed several times by OIG agents; in July he was suspended.
The OIG said the suspensions followed concerns about a research contract he had been involved in awarding, and not his polar bear article. But some pressure groups alleged the episode represented political interference with science and was a witch-hunt, or at least an attempt to intimidate researchers whose studies might affect the politics of climate change. The issue became known in some quarters as "Polarbeargate".
more at link...
Problem is, the polar bears didn't die, they're great swimmers and fishers and their population has more than doubled over the past few decades. Just more evidence that proves these "scientists" are paid-off quacks, who don't follow the scientific method and have fraudulently manipulated data to fear-monger the population to believing their banker bosses' carbon scam.It's the next step in "Polarbeargate" – one of two scientists... more
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A US government department that has spent six months investigating potential fraud in polar bear studies has failed to collect tens of billions of dollars in royalties from oil companies, it has emerged….
The controversy over [polar bear expert Charles] Monnett has become an embarrassment for the agency, which was renamed after last year’s BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Texas exposed the overly close relationship between government regulators and the industry that they were meant to be regulating.
A US watchdog has designated the interior department at ‘high risk’ of fraud, waste and abuse.
I have previously written about the Kafkaesque investigation into polar bear researcher Charles Monnett (see “Breaking Exclusive: Polar Bears Still Screwed by Global Warming“).
As the UK Guardian reports, what’s even more amazing about the whole thing is that while the Inspector General has been sending numerous innumerate investigators to question Monnett about science whose validity has never been questioned, they have ignored the real incompetence at the Interior Department, which is costing American taxpayers of billions of dollars. Here’s the rest of that story:
Investigators from the Department of Interior called in a government wildlife biologist, Charles Monnett, for questioning on his design of an ongoing polar bear study, which was conducted on a budget of $1.2m over seven years.
Monnett was suspended on 18 July for unspecified “integrity issues” related to the study, and an alleged oversight of about $50m in research contracts.
But while the interior department has been focusing on polar bears, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has faulted the department for failing to collect billions in royalties from oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic.
The GAO designated the department at “high risk” of fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in a report to Congress in February 2011.
“Interior does not have reasonable assurance that it is collecting its share of billions of dollars of revenue from oil and gas produced on federal lands, and it continues to experience problems in hiring, training, and retaining sufficient staff to provide oversight and management of oil and gas operations on federal lands and waters,” the GAO wrote.
The report went on to say that the interior department had consistently failed to monitor oil and gas production – which made it impossible for the government to collect a full share of the royalties it was owed from oil companies.
It is unclear how many billions the government failed to collect, it added. However, it noted a 2008 report from the GAO, which estimated potential losses on royalties from deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico between 1996 and 2000 to be as high as $53bn.
More at the linkA US government department that has spent six months investigating potential fraud in... more
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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement.
Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct.
The federal agency where he works told him he was on leave pending the results of an investigation into "integrity issues." A watchdog group believes it has to do with the 2006 journal article about the bear, but a source familiar with the investigation said late Thursday that placing Monnett on leave had nothing to with scientific integrity or the article.
more at link...
The fact is that the polar bear population has more than doubled in size since the second half of last century. They're great long distance swimmers and often do so to kill and then swim back to the land they came from.JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Judge rules polar bears still 'threatened'
June 30, 2011 | 3:51 pm
Polar A U.S. District Court on Thursday upheld a Bush-era decision that polar bears are a threatened species, despite challenges by the state of Alaska and others seeking to strip the bear of its protection.
Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to protect the bear because of the melting of the Arctic sea ice was well supported and that opponents failed to demonstrate that the listing was irrational.
“Plaintiffs’ challenges amount to nothing more than competing views about policy and science,” Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote.
The polar bear was the first species added to the Endangered Species List solely because of the threat from global warming.
The status of polar bears became an issue in 2005 after the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace filed a petition arguing that shrinking ice impaired the bears' ability to catch prey and could lead to their extinction. In December 2006, then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne declared the bears "threatened," rather than endangered and in imminent danger of extinction. Endangered and threatened species receive the same protections, such as protection of critical habitats, population recovery assistance and prohibition of harm to the species or its habitat. For threatened species, however, the government can reduce protections or allow exemptions.
If the bears were listed as endangered, new power plants could be blocked, as well as other sources of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming. It also could make petroleum exploration more difficult.
As a result, Kempthorne created a "special rule" stating that the Act would not be used to set climate policy or limit greenhouse gas emissions, pesticides, mercury and other pollutants outside of the Arctic that harm the bear. The Obama administration upheld this policy.
The state of Alaska and hunting groups argued that the listing was unnecessary because the bear is protected by other laws.
“With the population of the species in decline, the needless hunting of them for sport must not be an option,” said Jeffrey Flocken, D.C. Office Director, International Fund for Animal Welfare. “As pro-trophy hunting organizations continue the fight to skirt existing laws and import polar bear trophies, today’s decision serves to reinforce the fact that the species is in jeopardy. The short-term special interests of hunting groups must never take precedence over long-term conservation efforts for the protection of polar bears.”
Currently, conservation groups are challenging Kempthorne's special rule in court.
“This decision is an important affirmation that the science demonstrating that global warming is pushing the polar bear toward extinction simply cannot be denied,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “While we are disappointed that the polar bear will not receive the more protective endangered status it deserves, maintaining Endangered Species Act listing for the polar bear is a critical part of giving this species back its future.”
Studies show that rising temperatures are quickly melting the Arctic sea ice, forcing polar bears inland. In September 2007, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey released a comprehensive nine-volume analysis of the science and reached a dire forecast: Two-thirds of the bear's habitat would disappear by 2050.
Polar bears are experts at hunting ringed seals and other prey on sea ice. But they are so unsuccessful on land that they spend their summers fasting, losing more than 2 pounds a day. Overall, scientists believe the global population of 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears remains robust. But virtually all polar bear experts predict rapid population declines in the Arctic, which is warming faster than anyplace else in the world, changing too rapidly for the bears to adapt and find another source of food.
.Los Angeles Times...
Judge rules polar bears still 'threatened'
June... more
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Funny Animals-Polar Bear Flirts with Mate – Polar Bear Spy on the Ice – BBC OneFunny Animals-Polar Bear Flirts with Mate – Polar Bear Spy on the Ice –... more
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The video of Knut the polar bear spinning himself dizzy before dropping dead into the water at the Berlin zoo earlier this week made people all over the world wonder what on earth had happened to the young bear. German vets now say that the four-year-old polar bear died prematurely due to brain problems. Initial findings from a postmortem performed by an institute in the German capital showed "significant changes to the brain, which can be viewed as a reason for the polar bear's sudden death", the zoo said in a statement.Pathologists found no changes to any other organs, the zoo said, adding that it would take several days to produce a final result. Further planned tests include bacteriological and histological, or tissue, examinations.Knut died on Saturday in front of visitors at the zoo, turning around several times and then falling into the water in his enclosure. Polar bears usually live 15 to 20 years in the wild and longer in captivity.Knut, who was born in December 2006 at the zoo, rose to celebrity status as a cub. He was rejected by his mother at birth, along with his twin brother, who only survived a couple of days.He attracted attention when his main keeper, Thomas Doerflein, camped out at the zoo to give Knut his bottle every two hours. Doerflein died in 2008 of a heart attack.Knut went on to appear on magazine covers, in a film and on mountains of merchandise.
Source: The Guardian
The video of Knut the polar bear spinning himself dizzy before dropping dead... more
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A polar bear swam continuously for over nine days, covering 687km (426 miles), a new study has revealed.
Scientists studying bears around the Beaufort sea, north of Alaska, claim this endurance feat could be a result of climate change.
Polar bears are known to swim between land and sea ice floes to hunt seals.
But the researchers say that increased sea ice melts push polar bears to swim greater distances, risking their own health and future generations.
(more at link)A polar bear swam continuously for over nine days, covering 687km (426 miles), a new... more
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Polar bear’s epic nine day swim in search of sea ice | BBC
A polar bear swam continuously for over nine days, covering 687km (426 miles), a new study has revealed.Polar bear’s epic nine day swim in search of sea ice | BBC
A polar bear swam... more
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White bears and seals are back on the ice packs and will only have to fear the Orcinus orca, as fantasy fur is a must at CHANEL for next season.White bears and seals are back on the ice packs and will only have to fear the Orcinus... more
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After a two-day train ride from Winnipeg, Robert Reid of Lonely Planet (http://lonelyplanet.com) and Kim Mance (http://galavanting.tv), arrive in the subarctic 'polar bear capital of the world', Churchill Manitoba which sits on the Hudson Bay. The two travel writers take off on adventure tours to see wild polar bears and beluga whales in their natural habitat. They also get unexpected bonuses like a rocket launcher, souvenir shopping, a visit to Polar Bear jail, and a chat with Parks Canada Bear Patrol.
hosted by: Kim Mance from http://galavanting.tv & Robert Reid from http://lonelyplanet.com
edited by: Kim Mance
music by: Robert Reid
motion graphics by: Courtney Hannibal
travel & accommodations provided by: Tourism Manitoba http://travelmanitoba.comAfter a two-day train ride from Winnipeg, Robert Reid of Lonely Planet... more
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The Obama administration is setting aside 187,000 square miles in Alaska as a "critical habitat" for polar bears,
Greenspace (Los Angeles Times)
Obama administration moves to protect polar bear
November 24, 2010 | 9:02 pm
The Obama administration is setting aside 187,000 square miles in Alaska as a "critical habitat" for polar bears, an action that could restrict future offshore drilling for oil and gas. The total, which includes large areas of sea ice off the Alaska coast, is about 13,000 square miles, or 8.3 million acres, less than in a preliminary plan released last year.
Tom Strickland, assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks at the Interior Department, said the designation would help polar bears stave off extinction, recognizing that the greatest threat is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change.
"This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations," Strickland said. "We will continue to work toward comprehensive strategies for the long-term survival of this iconic species."
Designation of crucial habitat does not in itself block economic activity or other development, but requires federal officials to consider whether a proposed action would adversely affect the polar bear's habitat and interfere with its recovery.
Nearly 95% of the designated habitat is sea ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska's northern coast. Polar bears spend most of their lives on frozen ocean where they hunt seals, breed and travel.
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and the state's oil and gas industry had complained that the preliminary plan released last year was too large and dramatically underestimated the potential economic impact. The designation could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost economic activity and tax revenue, they said.
Parnell said that the state is pleased that existing man-made structures will be exempted from critical habitat considerations. But, he said in a statement, the state is disappointed it was not consulted on other recommendations. "This additional layer of regulatory burden will not only slow job creation and economic growth here and for our nation, but will also slow oil and gas exploration efforts," Parnell said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said reductions included in the final rule were mostly due to corrections that more accurately reflect the U.S. border in the Arctic Ocean. Five U.S. Air Force radar sites were exempted from the final rule, as were Native Alaskan communities in Barrow and Kaktovik, Alaska.
The Interior Department has declared polar bears "threatened," or likely to become endangered, citing a dramatic loss of sea ice. Officials face a Dec. 23 deadline to explain why the bears were listed as threatened instead of the more protective "endangered."
Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has filed a lawsuit to increase protections for the polar bear, hailed the decision. "Now we need the Obama administration to actually make it mean something so we can write the bear's recovery plan — not its obituary," she said. Siegel called for a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in bear habitat areas. "An oil spill there would be a catastrophe," she said. "That seems like an understatement."
The Arctic Slope Regional Corp., which advocates for Alaska native business interests, said in a statement that the decision disproportionately affects Alaska natives and called the designation the "wrong tool" for conserving the polar bear because it does nothing to address climate change.
"The burden of the impacts will be felt by the people of the Arctic Slope," said Tara Sweeney, vice president of external affairs for ASRC, which is based in Barrow, Alaska. "This is a quality-of-life issue for our people."
Kara Moriarty, deputy director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Assn., said the action would hurt oil and gas exploration in Alaska by creating more delays and added costs to projects in what already is a high-cost environment.
"The companies and the industry will be required to go through more permitting and create mitigation measures without a direct benefit to the polar bear or oil and gas development," Moriarty said. "The Fish and Wildlife Service has found over and over again our activities pose no threat to the polar bear."The Obama administration is setting aside 187,000 square miles in Alaska as a... more
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Ted Danson urges more science before exploration
Published on November 12th, 2010 5:12 pm
By MARGARET BAUMAN (The Seward Phoenix LOG)
Alaska Native groups and environmentalists opposed to offshore drilling in the Arctic found support this week in testimony offered at a federal hearing by actor Ted Danson, while state, union and industry officials asked for the project to proceed.
Danson, who is in Anchorage filming "Everyone Loves Whales" with Drew Barrymore, told the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement that its revised environmental impact statement still needs work.
"It would be a mistake for the train to leave the station ... to lease and then do the science," he said. "If you're going to drill in environmentally sensitive areas, make sure you've got it right. And we haven't gotten it right yet," said Danson, a board member of the ocean advocacy group Oceana.
"Our suggestion is to stop this draft, do the real science, the base science, and it would take maybe four or five years to do that, $20 million per year, would be well worth that effort," he said.
Danson was among 78 people signed up to testify in the standing-room-only crowd Nov. 9 before BOEMRE, formerly the federal Minerals Management Service, in a midtown Anchorage office building.
BOEMRE officials listened for some three hours to a steady stream of people arguing for and against allowing offshore drilling to proceed in the traditional sea mammal hunting grounds of the North Slope's Inupiat Eskimo hunters.
The hearing was the last of four hearings held in Alaska on the supplemental environmental impact statement for oil and gas lease sale 193 in the Chukchi Sea, which would be conducted by Shell Oil. Others were scheduled earlier at Kotzebue, Point Hope, Point Lay, Wainwright and Barrow. Shell contends that there is little chance that a blowout would occur in this relatively shallow area of the outer continental shelf, but that if it did, that the spill could be contained and cleaned up.
Danson, who was among the first signed up to testify, had visited just days earlier in Barrow, with North Slope borough Mayor Edward Itta.
"The people he represents have been lifted up economically from oil money into a place where they can live in a much more sustainable way," Danson said. "And at the same time, their spiritual and cultural life depends on whaling, bowhead whale, and they feel that may or may not be in jeopardy from this drilling."
"This is a high risk gamble," said marine scientist Rick Steiner, who followed Danson in giving testimony. Steiner, who has served as an advisor on oil spill disasters worldwide, said the oil industry is not ready to handle a spill in arctic waters. "Oil spill response never ever worked anywhere," he said. "If an oil spill occurred right before freeze up (in the arctic) there would be no chance of clean-up."
Supporters of proceeding with offshore drilling said that if the leases are rescinded it would mean a loss of one of the greatest opportunities in the nation to create jobs, contribute to the reduction of the huge federal deficit, and wean America off of the grip of foreign oil.
"To be able to produce oil estimated at 29 billion barrels, and another possible 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the Chukchi may hold the key to helping us solve a significant part of our country's energy woes," said Vince Beltrami, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, which he said represents some 60,000 working families in Alaska.
"To rescind these leases would be to remove the potential of 35,000 year-round jobs and a payroll of more than $72 billion."
Beltrami said concerns about the safety of the environment are paramount. "Shell should be held to the highest safety accountability standards possible, as everyone knows we can ill afford a Gulf Coast style catastrophe in our Arctic waters," he said. "But this company has an excellent track record. Shell has a robust safety plan and has been safely drilling in Alaska for 50 years."
Kevin Banks, director of the state Division of Oil and Gas, complimented BOEMRE for the work they put into the supplemental environmental impact statement. "We believe that it provides more than sufficient support for the decision to affirm the Feb. 6, 2008 Sale 193 and that it is well past time to proceed to the next phase of exploration."
Banks that what is often lost in the debate about OCS development is "the simple fact that when we fail to develop our own domestic resources, we export our nation's wealth through deeper trade imbalances and the costs to maintain our international energy security. Failure to develop our domestic resources 0065acerbates the impacts on the environment in other parts of the world where values about environmental protection and the laws that minimize the impact of industrial activity are non-existent," he said.
Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity, also testified, speaking of an Arctic in trouble, warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, with Arctic summer sea ice disappearing more rapidly than climate models predicted.
Noblin said Chukchi species, including polar bears and Pacific walrus, are already showing signs of stress due to loss of sea ice habitat, but that the loaming industrial oil drilling also threatens these species.
"No one, no one has the technology to clean up oil in broken ice conditions," Noblin said. "There is no way to mobilize even a fraction of the response required for the Gulf disaster in the remote Arctic. And the truth is that a large oil spill could mean the difference between survival and extinction for struggling Arctic species."
Noblin told BOEMRE that in order to comply with the law the agency must analyze the substantial gaps in scientific information in the current EIS. "And most importantly, you must not allow drilling to go forward unless you have the scientific knowledge to say, truthfully, that drilling in the Arctic is safe," she said.
BOEMRE will continue to accept testimony through Nov. 30.
http://thesewardphoenixlog.com/thumb_srv.php?gallery=news_1011&img=all_11-18_lease_sale_193.jpg&capWid=750&capHt=350¢er=1&sharpen=1
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTmeySEP08HG_2CA1WuVZgzlQjJJeqSGTwyljFM4-qkxBT-_IG44wTed Danson urges more science before exploration
Published on November 12th, 2010... more
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Arctic species under threat, report warns
By Matthew Knight for CNN
September 14, 2010 2:41 p.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* New report highlights extinction threat to Arctic wildlife
* Whales, walruses, Arctic foxes, even plankton are all at risk of dying out
* Rapid melting of Arctic ice sheet in recent years means habitats are disrupted or destroyed
* Lead author says reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a must to prevent further losses
London, England (CNN) -- Polar bears clinging to melting ice sheets have become one of the most frequently used images to portray the perils of climate change.
But a new report by the U.S. Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and UK-based Care for the Wild International (CWI) is bringing attention to the predicament of other equally endangered Arctic species.
Seventeen Arctic animals are highlighted in "Extinction: It's Not Just for Polar Bears."
Shaye Wolf, lead author and climate science director of the CBD told CNN: "The plight of the polar bear due to global warming is very well known and familiar. But many other Arctic species are suffering a similar fate -- from plankton all the way to the great whales."
The impacts of climate change are "unfolding far more rapidly in the Arctic than any other area on the planet" threatening its ecosystem, the report said.
A 2009 study by Donald K. Perovich and Jacqueline A Richter-Menge -- "Loss of Sea Ice in the Arctic" -- reported that the sea ice extent in 2007 was one million square miles below the average figure recorded between 1979 and 2000.
This, and other data suggests, say scientists, that summer sea ice could completely disappear in the Arctic by 2030.
The ice retreat is already spelling trouble for marine mammals like the Pacific walrus and the harp seal.
Pacific walruses, like many of the mammals in the report, are sea ice dependent says Wolf, with many having already suffering population declines.
"As we speak, there are 10 to 20,000 walruses holed up on Alaskan Arctic coastline. And that is attributable to sea ice loss," Wolf says.
"Walruses need sea ice for resting because they can't swim continuously. When they lose that sea ice, especially moms and calves, they are forced to come to shore -- where calves are very vulnerable to be trampled in stampedes."
Last year, Wolf says the stampede claimed 131 young walruses.
The number was even higher off the Russian coast in 2007 where several thousand calves died when around 40,000 walruses were pushed ashore.
Ocean acidification -- caused by increased uptake of carbon dioxide -- is happening more quickly in the Arctic than in warmer waters, says Wolf.
Shell-building marine creatures like the sea butterfly (Clione limacina) are particularly vulnerable to acidification.
Their loss would be potentially devastating for other species.
On land, the Arctic fox -- found on the southern edges of the Arctic tundra -- is facing "myriad threats from climate change," including shrinking sea ice and tundra, declines in lemming prey and increased competition from the larger, more dominant red fox -- which is edging north as temperatures rise.
All the animals in the report are at risk of extinction due to climate change says Wolf.
"What is going on in the Arctic isn't something that we can consider completely remote from ourselves. Actually, it's a fantastic barometer of what is going to happen in the rest of the world," CWI's Rebecca Taylor told CNN.
"The Arctic is ground zero for climate change and we're already pushing many species towards extinction. The key to preventing their loss is reducing our greenhouse gas emissions -- specifically carbon dioxide -- to a level of 350ppm or below. That is a level many leading scientists have called for to restore Arctic sea ice," Wolf said.Arctic species under threat, report warns
By Matthew Knight for CNN
September 14,... more
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Polar bear droppings are helping scientists shed light on the spread of deadly antibiotic-resistant superbugs.Polar bear droppings are helping scientists shed light on the spread of deadly... more
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Since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in April, all eyes have been on BP and the growing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, but this uncomfortable exposure hasn't stopped big oil and gas companies from continuing their destructive practices in other parts of the country.
Thanks to federal judge's recent decision, however, they will be forced to suspend their plans for developing oil and gas wells on billions of dollars in leases in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea.
Unfortunately, the judge's decision to halt Arctic drilling only temporarily suspends the leases while further environmental analysis is conducted. There is still a chance that this vital polar bear and whale habitat could be invaded by oil and gas companies.
Is there any way to drill in Arctic waters without endangering the environment? Vote in poll: http://ow.ly/2fGoASince the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in April, all eyes... more
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A joint commission meeting in Alaska recommended lifting the ban on harvesting polar bears for traditional and cultural purposes in Russia.
The U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commission met this week in Anchorage to determine the potential for a planned harvest by Native peoples in Alaska and Chukotka in Russia who subsist on the bears.
The harvest would be limited to up to 58 polar bears a year, with no more than 19 females.
The move would end a 50-year ban on the Russian side. It is expected to improve monitoring and decrease poaching in that country.
In Alaska, a team will develop a plan that will be presented at the next meeting of the commission in June 2011.
Alaska Natives harvested an average of 38 polar bears a year from 2004 to 2008.
http://www.animaljournal.org/2010/06/16/alaska-says-sure-kill-polar-bears/ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A joint commission meeting in Alaska recommended lifting the... more
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Lawsuit Launched to Protect Polar Bears From Interior Secretary Salazar's Arctic Offshore Drilling Plan - Dangerous Drilling Plans Completely Discounted Oil-spill Risk
The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a formal notice of intent to sue Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for failing to assess the impacts on endangered species of a large oil spill that could result from this summer’s offshore exploration drilling in polar bear habitat off Alaska. In approving drilling plans by Shell Oil, Salazar concluded that the risk of a large oil spill from exploration drilling was so remote that no analysis of such a spill under the Endangered Species Act was required.
“While Salazar’s conclusion that exploration drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas posed little risk of a large oil spill was dubious at the time it was made, in light of the recent catastrophic oil spill occurring in the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s exploration drilling, such a position is now clearly untenable,” said Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director of the Center.
On October 16, 2009, Secretary Salazar approved Shell’s exploration plan to drill in the Beaufort Sea, and on December 7, 2009 he approved a similar Shell plan to drill in the Chukchi Sea. These Arctic seas, north of Alaska, are home to several threatened and endangered species, including polar bears, Steller’s and spectacled eiders, and bowhead whales. No technology currently exists to clean up a large oil spill in icy waters.
In approving Shell’s plans, Secretary Salazar adopted Shell’s conclusion that “a large oil spill, such as a crude oil release from a blowout, is extremely rare and not considered a reasonably foreseeable impact.” Similarly, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency in Secretary Salazar’s Interior Department that is charged with protecting the polar bear and other threatened and endangered species, declined to consider the impacts of a large oil spill in its Endangered Species Act analysis.
“Given the difficulties of dealing with a spill in the calm waters of the Gulf, where response equipment and other resources are close at hand, it is the height of irresponsibility for Secretary Salazar to allow Shell to drill for oil this summer in remote areas of the Arctic when no technology exists to clean up an oil spill in icy conditions, and mobilizing an effective response would be virtually impossible,” said Noblin.
The Endangered Species Act requires all federal agencies, such as the Minerals Management Service, the agency in the Department of the Interior responsible for managing offshore oil, to ensure that any action they carry out does not “jeopardize” a threatened or endangered species. Salazar previously concluded that Shell’s drilling plans would not jeopardize the polar bear and other imperiled species of the Arctic. The Endangered Species Act requires agencies to revisit their conclusions about an action’s impacts on species if new information calls into question their conclusions. The recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico triggers a legal obligation for Secretary Salazar to reexamine his approval of Shell’s drilling permits in the Arctic. He has apparently not done so, prompting today’s legal notice.
While Obama has announced that no new oil-drilling operations will occur until review of the Gulf spill is completed, both Shell and Secretary Salazar are apparently interpreting Obama’s directive as not applying to Shell’s drilling plans. Shell’s drilling, unless stopped by Obama or the courts, would begin in early July, likely before the causes of the Gulf spill are determined, possibly before the leaking well is sealed, and certainly before cleanup in the Gulf is completed.
“This week, as a result of Secretary Salazar’s rubberstamping of oil-company drilling plans, we are seeing oiled birds and dead sea turtles wash up on the beaches of Louisiana,” said Noblin. “Unless the secretary calls a halt to Shell’s dangerous drilling plans we run the risk of seeing dead and oiled polar bears washing up on the coast of Alaska this summer. By recklessly letting Arctic drilling go forward, Secretary Salazar is playing Russian roulette with the polar bears, bowhead whales, and coastal communities in Alaska that would be devastated by a spill.”
Today’s 60-day notice of intent to sue, sent by the Center for Biological Diversity to Secretary Salazar and two Interior Department agencies, the Minerals Management Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is a legally required precursor to filing a lawsuit under the Endangered Species Act.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2010/arctic-drilling-05-05-2010.html
Profile on Polar Bear - http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/polar_bear/index.html
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/polar_bear/ads.html
Also, please visit 'Save the Polar Bear' - http://www.savethepolarbear.org/Lawsuit Launched to Protect Polar Bears From Interior Secretary Salazar's Arctic... more
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Photographer of endangered wildlife in race against time, apathy
By Bill Mears, CNN
April 24, 2010 10:21 a.m. EDT
Washington (CNN) -- Joel Sartore's photograph of gentle Bryn is a permanent record, but she has been lost forever.
The Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit died in 2008 shortly after the picture was taken. She was the last of her kind.
Sartore, who has worked for the National Geographic Society for two decades, called the brief shooting session with the doomed rabbit a "solemn occasion," knowing she would not be around much longer.
Bryn is one of dozens of animals profiled in a new book, "Rare: Portraits of America's Endangered Species," by the award-winning photographer. See more portraits
Sartore, a Nebraska native, traveled the country to get glimpses of 69 species -- red wolves, Hawaiian orchids, hellbenders (a prehistoric-looking salamander), and sea turtles -- all now or once hanging on the verge of extinction.
As the United States celebrated Earth Day on Thursday, Sartore talked with CNN recently about his passion for raising awareness about preserving the variety of animal and plant life before it is too late.
CNN: This may be the only chance for most readers to see these beautiful, rare creatures.
Joel Sartore: Whatever press these animals get is really minimal. Even some of the animals we call "charismatic mega-fauna" -- like whooping cranes, California condors -- they don't get enough press, so can you imagine the Pyne's ground-plum or the Mount Graham red squirrel -- what odds to they have to ever get even their 15 minutes of fame nationally?
The goal is really to get people first aware of these always amazing plants and animals and to get them to care, before it's too late. A lot of the things that are going away are very small, little plants and invertebrates.
CNN: This book expanded on a National Geographic magazine feature from several years ago. Why do an entire book?
Sartore: I was always interested in endangered species, mainly why we let it happen. If we won't save our own plants and animals, how can we expect poorer nations to do that? So it's always been a bit of an outrage to me that we can let things disappear into extinction.
CNN: You decided not to shoot your subjects in the wild, in their natural habitats. Instead you chose simple indoor backgrounds. Was that a practical or artistic consideration?
Sartore: I needed to drive the point home that the small things are as important, if not more so, than the big things, and I figured by putting them on black and white backgrounds, it would make a rare butterfly as "impactful" as a polar bear. It is a great equalizer, and I tried to capture the intimacy and essence of each plant or animal.
It's really hard to show something like an Iowa Pleistocene snail in a dramatic way when it's the size of a pencil lead and it lives in a kind of in a crack in a rock. If I shot in the wild, I would have had to pass on a lot of small creatures because I couldn't figure out a way to make the picture sexy enough.
CNN: Does taking them out of their natural habitats remove some of the connection with the reader, that these animals exist in a larger wild environment?
Sartore: That really wasn't a concern. I'm desperate to get somebody to care, right now. I have to make as dramatic a picture as I can. The American public cares a lot more about what's on TV and the price at the pump. That's sometimes all they care about, so my job is to get people to stop and think in any way I can that we're talking about a matter of life and death. There's such a disconnect now between humans and the natural world, and it gets worse every year.
CNN: Many of these rare animals exist near human habitation, accessible to people who might want to seek them out.
Hopelessness doesn't get us anywhere. It's just a matter of getting people to realize what's at stake.
Sartore: That's true, but it's sad the disconnect from nature is so great that guys like me are having to turn the volume up any way we can on images to try to get people to care before all these species go away. We lost five birds in the turn of the last century, including the passenger pigeon.
I'm seeing this acceleration I never thought would happen in my lifetime -- I thought I'd have a lot more time -- for literally thousands of species, and it's just very hard to get anybody excited about it, which stuns me.
CNN: You shot an ocelot, a neotropical wildcat that ventures into extreme south Texas and Arizona.
Sartore: It wouldn't stay still. It was trained to walk on a leash at the San Diego Zoo, and we got seven minutes with him before he got full. He'll stay in a certain area and not get antsy if you give him treats. The moment he fills up, he's done.
For the grizzly bear, we painted an exhibit area white at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita. That bear was pacing the whole time, so we took pictures of him as we could. Most of the time, the animals aren't happy about it, but this is the only chance they'll get to be seen and so the ends justify the means. Most of the time, it's a really quick process.
CNN: What surprises readers most?
Sartore: The one comment I get from people is: Wow, I had no idea that these things exist and that they're intricate, interesting and beautiful. And they didn't know they are on the edge of not existing.
I'm hoping these pictures give a voice to the voiceless, that they allow some of these things that are living in forgotten marshes or some breeding facility that doesn't have enough funding, that they allow these species to be heard at least once before they go away.
CNN.com: The American burying beetle is not well known, but nevertheless is important to the planet.
Sartore: The St. Louis Zoo has a successful breeding program. That's an insect that was thought to go into extreme decline after the passenger pigeon went away because it's an animal that will actually bury the carcass of a dead bird or a rodent, and then create a nest chamber near it and then the parents shovel food back and forth to the young.
So when billions of passenger pigeons were shot and disappeared, there went the carcasses, (and) the beetle was taken down with it. They've been rediscovered in a few states, but having undisturbed habitat is critical for this animal.
CNN.com: Why should people care, and what can they do about it?
Sartore: Many of the stories we tell are sad ones -- not all. There are many stories of hope -- the California condor, whooping crane, black-footed ferret, bald eagle, and the American alligator. So people can and have done good things. We can make great choices every day to help our planet. Every time we spend money we can help the planet, if we act responsibly.
But if we don't turn things around, things are going to get very uncomfortable. My job is to make great pictures and get people to see what's going on. It's not hopeless, we can turn things around, but we have to first realize there's a problem.
Hopelessness doesn't get us anywhere. It's just a matter of getting people to realize what's at stake. Most of these species are failing because their habitat is being chewed up. It's folly to think that as animals ourselves, we can let the rest of the world go to hell but we'll be just fine. We're all interconnected.Photographer of endangered wildlife in race against time, apathy
By Bill Mears, CNN... more
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