“We have never been here before” — Gay Sheffield
I keep vigil.
Scientists are warning of massive change to the Bering Sea ecosystem. The most significant changes are the scarcity of sea ice and warming temperatures.
Populations of walleye pollock and Pacific cod have exploded by 5000 percent and 2000 percent respectively, while forage fish have declined. “For example, the biomass of smelts and Arctic cod, important fish to northern Bering Sea marine wildlife, has dropped by 98–100 percent between 2010 and 2017”.
There are other changes in the Arctic not discussed in the brief presser. For example, erosion of the permafrost is impacting the marine food web. Trump's approval of ocean oil exploration in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific, may just finish it all off because oil is discovered in the ocean by seismic testing.
Noise in the Arctic ocean from industrial sources results in a cacophony of “shipping, seismic exploration for oil and gas and naval sonar used for routine training exercises”. The “endless barrage of noise impairs the ability of our planet’s vulnerable marine life to communicate, find food, navigate and breed”. The removal of this madman is critical, hurry up Mueller.
The dramatic loss of Bering sea ice from 2013-2018. The quick disappearance of ice in the Bering Sea was a factor in the near-record low maximum ice extent seen across the entire Arctic in 2018. But even before that near-low was recognized, unusual conditions, like the late start to the annual freeze-up and places with little to no shore-fast ice, were setting this stage throughout the 2017-18 season. This winter brought less ice to the Bering Sea than any prior winter had since the start of written records in 1850, the International Arctic Research Center and NOAA stated. The Weather ChannelSea Grant Alaska reports:
Meanwhile, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service began receiving reports last May of dead and dying seabirds from communities along the northern Bering and southern Chukchi seas. Investigators at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center examined carcasses and concluded that the birds died of starvation.
The die-off involves murres, shearwaters, puffins, fulmars, kittiwakes and auklets. It’s continuing and now includes the Pribilof Islands and northern Gulf of Alaska, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is receiving information from Alaska Sea Grant, Kawerak Inc., Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Alaska Migratory Bird Co-management Council, National Park Service, and the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team.
The approximately 1,500 seabirds reported by communities is likely only a small fraction of the overall number seabirds affected. An indicator of ocean ecosystem health, seabirds are often likened to the proverbial canary in a coal mine.
Marine mammals also struggled this summer. For example, 48 dead seals were documented in a half-mile stretch of beach near Wales. There were many other marine mammal stranding events as well.
These changes are due to rising temperatures in the Fall, warmer water and more powerful storms.
Broken-wing display performed by Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) which should drive a potential predator away from the nest, Barrow, Alaska, 2012. 1Climate Change May Curtail Shorebirds’ Need to Fly North
Scientific American reports that climate change is wreaking havoc for migrating birds to the Arctic. Shorebirds migrate north to help alleviate the risk of predation of their eggs which is less common than in lower latitudes. Instead, researchers found the reverse is true, climate change in the Arctic is to blame for plummeting populations of shorebirds worldwide.
Possible explanations for this remain unclear. “It could be that there are more predators now, or fewer other prey such as lemmings,” Székely says. Rolf Ims, an ecologist at The Arctic University of Norway who is involved in a food chain–monitoring program in the Norwegian Arctic, agrees. “In warmer winters there tends to be more rain, which can lead to the formation of an ice layer on the snow that prevents lemmings from finding food,” says Ims, who did not take part in the new study. “If lemmings disappear, predators might turn to eggs.”
Ims notes predators such as red foxes and hooded crows are known to be moving north, and he suggests this might also be linked to climate change—specifically to increased plant growth under warmer conditions. “Foxes and crows eat berries and plant-eating invertebrates as well, so they would benefit from more plant biomass,” he says. “And they can also feed on the rodents and reindeer that die when the snow freezes over.” Once these predators are established they would be unlikely to say no to a nest of nutritious shorebird eggs. Ims finds the patterns revealed by the study convincing, and notes more research on predation is needed. “I do hope this study will inspire others to start looking into this now, as the consequences of the pattern we have revealed could be devastating,” Székely says. In fact, he adds, it could make migration itself a lot less attractive. “One of the reasons birds breed in the Arctic is that there is an abundance of insects in summer,” he says. “But the other, I believe, is that their nests used to be much safer there. If this ceases to be the case, migration might turn out to be a waste of energy.
Long-distance migrants are declining, says Paul Allen Smith, an Arctic conservation ecologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, a government department. “This suggests that the benefits of long-distance migration are not what they once were.” An earlier Science paper Smith co-wrote about nest predation in the Canadian Arctic between 2004 and 2008 reported an opposite pattern, in the sense predation on artificial nests there decreased as the researchers moved north. Yet Smith and his colleagues’ regional data on artificial nests are difficult to compare with those in the new study because Székely and his team have used existing worldwide data on predation of real nests instead. In any case, Smith agrees the low and declining global nest survival revealed by the study are a cause for concern.
“What was really shocking to me,” Székely says, “is that shorebird survival is now not just compromised where humans abound—but also, via the climate, in very remote areas, including some of the least-inhabited places on Earth.” In certain cases he believes it may be necessary to fence off breeding areas or even cull wild predators, something the Norwegian Environment Agency is already doing with red foxes in some areas. More importantly, Székely argues, humans should double down on our efforts to prevent climate change, and should fight other threats such as hunting and loss of resting sites that may be more manageable
x xYouTube VideoFor the past ten years, human communities that rely on fishing and hunting have needed to respond to the changes in the Bering Sea. Gay Sheffield notes the changes:
Novel unknown diseases. In 2011, a still unknown disease affected all four species of ice-associated seals and resulted in the first federally authorized Unusual Mortality Event (UME) to be declared in the Arctic and the first UME that involved marine mammals used as food by people. In 2013, we had our first documented cases of avian cholera in Alaska on Saint Lawrence Island, and first documented cases of avian cholera in several species of seabirds. In 2017, the region documented a harvested walrus with a high level of saxitoxin, a potent neurotoxin, in its intestine, indicating that a harmful algal bloom had occurred in the region. Heavily oiled wildlife was harvested over three consecutive years (2012–2014) and resulted in the first Unified Command response in the Arctic, though the source of the oil was never found in Alaska waters. Region-wide die-offs of seabirds and a localized walrus die-off during 2017. New concerns over harmful algal blooms and potential paralytic shellfish poisoning of food resources due to regional increased ocean temperatures. An ongoing seabird die-off in 2018 with starvation as the only known cause.Thanks for reading and caring.