Wrangel Island
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Polar Bear Behavioral Ecology on Wrangel Island
Principal investigator: Dr. Nikita Ovsyanikov, Senior Research Scientist, Pacific Institute of Geography, Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Scientists.
I. General Statement
Wrangel Island with neighboring small Herald Island are the key reproductive areas for the Chukchi-Alaskan polar bear population. Marine areas and Wrangel and Herald islands provide optimum foraging habitats for polar bears, and polar bear densities in these marine habitats are high all year round. Approximately 350-500 pregnant female polar bears construct their maternity dens on Wrangel and Herald islands every fall, emerging with their cubs in spring.
Wrangel Island lies right on the southern border of the summer pack-ice extension. In years with normal ice conditions in the fall, a number of polar bears of all ages and both sexes come ashore on the island for brief periods of time. During ice-free seasons, however, tens to hundreds of polar bears stand on the shore for weeks, waiting for the ocean to freeze or for pack ice to move back from the North. This provides scientists with a unique opportunity to study polar bear distribution, population structure, social interactions, and other behaviors through visual observation.
Autumn observations of polar bear activities and the condition of the bears allow scientists to estimate the current status of the population and monitor population dynamics. This is particularly important on Wrangel because the Chukchi-Alaskan population of polar bears is exposed to legal native hunting in both Russia and Alaska and to illegal hunting on the Russian side. In addition, this population is threatened by planned oil and gas exploration on the continental shelf and by the opening of the Northeast Passage to commercial shipping.
II. Goals and Objectives
Goals:
Principal investigator: Dr. Nikita Ovsyanikov, Senior Research Scientist, Pacific Institute of Geography, Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Scientists.
I. General Statement
Wrangel Island with neighboring small Herald Island are the key reproductive areas for the Chukchi-Alaskan polar bear population. Marine areas and Wrangel and Herald islands provide optimum foraging habitats for polar bears, and polar bear densities in these marine habitats are high all year round. Approximately 350-500 pregnant female polar bears construct their maternity dens on Wrangel and Herald islands every fall, emerging with their cubs in spring.
Wrangel Island lies right on the southern border of the summer pack-ice extension. In years with normal ice conditions in the fall, a number of polar bears of all ages and both sexes come ashore on the island for brief periods of time. During ice-free seasons, however, tens to hundreds of polar bears stand on the shore for weeks, waiting for the ocean to freeze or for pack ice to move back from the North. This provides scientists with a unique opportunity to study polar bear distribution, population structure, social interactions, and other behaviors through visual observation.
Autumn observations of polar bear activities and the condition of the bears allow scientists to estimate the current status of the population and monitor population dynamics. This is particularly important on Wrangel because the Chukchi-Alaskan population of polar bears is exposed to legal native hunting in both Russia and Alaska and to illegal hunting on the Russian side. In addition, this population is threatened by planned oil and gas exploration on the continental shelf and by the opening of the Northeast Passage to commercial shipping.
II. Goals and Objectives
Goals:
- To determine the demographic structure of polar bears coming ashore on Wrangel Island in autumn.
- To describe polar bear social interactions in spring and autumn and the role of social behavior in population dynamics.
- To determine the social and environmental factors that influence the polar bear well-being and survival.
- To estimate the number and distribution of polar bears along the coast of Wrangel Island, and to determine their sex, age, and current physical condition.
- To study polar bear activity while the bears are stranded on the shore in autumn.
- To estimate polar bear litter size in autumn, counting separately litters with cubs-of-the-year, yearlings, and two-year-old cubs.
- To study polar bear social and hunting behavior.
- To study polar bear-human interactions.
- To study polar bear social interactions in and near denning areas.
- To determine the factors that influence family group activity during the first weeks after the bears emerge from their maternity dens.
- To estimate the factors that influence the condition of the bears during the autumn season.
- To collect data on ecological processes along the boundaries between the terrestrial and marine ecosystems of Wrangel Island in autumn, including other animal species (particularly focusing on polar bear prey species), phenology, weather, and ice conditions.