It’s August in Churchill, Manitoba, which is geographically part of the circumpolar Arctic (that’s the Arctic Circle to you and me). I had always imagined a visit to the Arctic to involve ice knives growing from my nostrils and a film of frost forming where my eyelids should be; however as we wait for our guide in the courtyard of the eco lodge, the sun is blazing and my nose is burning. It’s summer, which means there are no vast sheets of ice and -40 degrees; instead there is a rocky shoreline surrounded by endless quantities of beautiful flowers.
Andy and Terry (our polar guides) appear holding riffles, noise sounders firmly attached to their belts as they begin filling their coat pockets with rocks. “We’ve never had to use these don’t worry”, they mused noticing the groups concerned eye balling of the riffles; “we had a close call once and we threw a rock at him and he ran away”. By him they mean DAB, a male Polar Bear they aptly named due to his poor hygiene (Dirty Arsed Bear). I might have thought this a little rude, but I later encountered DAB and for a marine mammal that spends the majority of his life in water, he really did have a dirty arse.
Polar Bears? In glorious sunshine and fields of blooming flowers? Don’t be ridiculous, I hear you say. There are thought to be 19 subpopulations of polar bears, which equates to around 20 – 25,000 individuals spread out across the continents included in the Arctic Circle. Some of these populations reside in habitats that encounter seasonal change and they subsequently experience a period of fasting when the ice has depleted, as prey is much harder to come by without the ice floes present. Eventually though, winter returns and the bears leave their grassy beds and head out to hunt (they really do make beds out of grass).
So what would happen if the ice was never to return? Polar bears rely almost entirely upon the annual layers of ice that form over the shallower regions of the continental shelf. Here biodiversity is higher throughout the trophic levels and consequently the prey available to polar bears (seals) is of high abundance.
Evidence displayed on the ICUN Redlist has suggested that the quality, thickness and occurrence of ice is likely to decline by 10 – 50% annually in the run up to 2100; which will lead to a depletion of prey. Although the starvation of polar bears is a tragedy and a likely outcome, the biggest threat to the population comes when reproduction halts due to malnutrition. Reproductive rates are already extremely low within the population with generations spanning long time periods. Mothers usually birth 1 – 2 cubs at a time and go for quality over quantity, staying in a snow den for 5 – 6 months with their young in order to help ensure their survival. During this time they live entirely off fat stores built up during the winter; consequently if these fat stores are inadequate the cubs are likely to be smaller and weaker and not survive the winter. It’s not only the lack of food, but also the increase in energy expenditure in order to find food that leads to a lagging growth and reproduction.
Pollutants are another ever-increasing threat. Initially they are consumed in relatively small quantities, but as we move up the food chain the concentration increases with an increase in food consumption. Being lipophilic, these pollutants cling to the fat molecules of their consumer and are stored within their blubber. As Polar bears are an apex predator that commonly requires a high fat diet, they strip this blubber from their prey and end up attempting to digest the highest amount of non-degradable crap that the western society has pumped into their habitat.
I know that by now we are feeling like we’ve had a big enough dose of bad news, but oil exploration and development is another factor piling up on top of the threats to the Arctic and its inhabitants. If an oil spill was to occur, it is likely to sit between the ice floes where the seals live and the polar bears hunt. I know that if I were to coat my dinner in fossil fuels before sitting down to have a chomp, my friends and family would be concerned for my wellbeing. It isn’t just the spills that could have catastrophic effects, but also the increase in human – polar bear interactions. More human activity is likely to lead to disturbance and if this occurs within a region where snow dens are present, mothers are highly likely to abandon their cubs leading to their mortality.
Towards the end of my time in Churchill, I sat 100 meters away from a mother and her two cubs as they lazed in the sun, occasionally getting up to take a dip in the ocean. It was one of the most serene moments I have ever encountered. I can only hope that these are moments people will be able to experience for years to come.
Sky High Diaries 