Polar Bears and Sea Ice... A Delicate Relationship

      We spent a very buggy day surveying plots in various locations for tree seedlings.  The land here is so different from home.  The ground is spongy and wet with a layer of thick peat, and beautiful tundra plant life.  All of this is underscored with a layer of permafrost.  In the mosquito infested forests and forest ecotones, the evergreen trees are relatively short, and wind mangled.  It takes a tree several decades to become the size of the seven year old Christmas Trees that my family sells on our tree farm.    

     The weather can turn on a dime which makes dressing for field work  tricky.  We started our morning meeting believing the temperature would be 1°C (about 32°F)  only to discover that it was much warmer.  I stripped layers during a lakeside lunch complete with hungry mosquitoes.

     Today we did not return to the study center mid day, so we pulled a double shift in the field with only a short break for food.  I was so tired when we finally go back to the center only to discover that someone arrange a Hudson Bay “dip” after the evening lecture.  Will I swim in the freezing ice ridden bay?  The peer pressure is immense!  At this point I am skeptical. 

     The evening lecture was about polar bear biology and climate change.  I learned that the bears are being forced off the ice and on to shore too early and too thin.  The ice is melting too early in the season  and populations are in decline.  Cub survival rate is dropping.  Birthrates are dropping.  Bears need to be on the ice as long as possible to hunt the ring seal. 

     More northern populations of polar bears are doing better than the Churchill subpopulations.  This explains why the US Endangered Species Act lists polar bears as a threatened population.  This listing is related to climate change and disappearing sea ice.  If the ice disappears, so will the polar bears.  Declining sea ice is DIRECTLY linked to declining polar bear populations.  The Western Hudson Bay subpopulations could be facing extirpation.  The more northern sub populations may remain stable. 

     We are off to the Hudson Bay for a “dip”.  Here is a photo of me giving "puppy love" to a Canadian Eskimo pup.  These dogs are raised as working dogs and cannot be used as pets.  I have also included an adult Canadian Eskimo dog.  Thanks for following me!