Team Work to Help the World's Polar Bears
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Dr. Steven C. Amstrup. Click the image to enlarge.
Overview
Dr. Steven C. Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center says that it is important to document how polar bears respond to Arctic climate change so that scientists can adapt management strategies to benefit the bears. Amstrup sees studies of the Western Hudson Bay, Southern Beaufort Sea, and Chukchi polar bear populations as particularly vital in terms of priorities.
“If we've learned anything from past wildlife studies, we've learned that the most valuable datasets are those that are prolonged enough to give us firm baselines and an understanding of how things change over time,” he says. “This is clearly the case for polar bears, where much of what we know about the species comes from either the Western Hudson Bay population or the Southern Beaufort Sea.”
Those two populations represent the range of habitats in which polar bears live, he says, making them excellent benchmarks for understanding other populations. The Western Hudson Bay bears are forced ashore each summer when the bay ice melts; in contrast, the Southern Beaufort Sea bears spend most of their time on the sea ice.
Amstrup also stresses the importance of studying the Chukchi Sea population, which faces climate change issues similar to those of the bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea. He notes that a limited and shorter-term study would be sufficient there because of the ability to extrapolate observed trends in the Chukchi area and relate them to trends in the Southern Beaufort Sea bears.
Dr. Steven C. Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center says that it is important to document how polar bears respond to Arctic climate change so that scientists can adapt management strategies to benefit the bears. Amstrup sees studies of the Western Hudson Bay, Southern Beaufort Sea, and Chukchi polar bear populations as particularly vital in terms of priorities.
“If we've learned anything from past wildlife studies, we've learned that the most valuable datasets are those that are prolonged enough to give us firm baselines and an understanding of how things change over time,” he says. “This is clearly the case for polar bears, where much of what we know about the species comes from either the Western Hudson Bay population or the Southern Beaufort Sea.”
Those two populations represent the range of habitats in which polar bears live, he says, making them excellent benchmarks for understanding other populations. The Western Hudson Bay bears are forced ashore each summer when the bay ice melts; in contrast, the Southern Beaufort Sea bears spend most of their time on the sea ice.
Amstrup also stresses the importance of studying the Chukchi Sea population, which faces climate change issues similar to those of the bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea. He notes that a limited and shorter-term study would be sufficient there because of the ability to extrapolate observed trends in the Chukchi area and relate them to trends in the Southern Beaufort Sea bears.