List of threatened Arctic animals is growing
 
 
September 12, 2009

 
Polar bears may be the most iconic Arctic creature threatened by 
climate change, but they've got plenty of company.

Hooded and ringed seals, Arctic foxes, ivory gulls, narwhals and 
Pacific walruses are also faring poorly as temperatures climb, say 
leading northern researchers, who report that climate change has 
"severely perturbed" Arctic ecosystems.

Just this week, thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska's 
northwest coast having abandoned the retreating ice, the latest in a 
growing list of peculiar events unfolding in the North.

Rapid and widespread changes have occurred across Arctic terrestrial, 
freshwater and marine systems, the scientists say in a report--to be 
published in the journal Science--that takes stock of the ecological 
consequences of recent climate change.

Southern creatures such as the red fox are expanding northward, they 
say, while many animals that depend on the ice are in trouble and some 
could be headed for extinction.

Early spring rains in the Canadian Arctic has seen ringed seals' 
birthing dens collapse, "leaving newborn pups exposed on bare ice," the 
international team reports. Polar bear cubs have been suffering a 
similar fate, it says, noting that denning in the Alaskan Beaufort is 
down 50 per cent, while the number of bears in Hudson Bay is down 22 
per cent.

The Pacific walrus, which uses ice as a feeding and breeding platform, 
has been hit so hard that the U. S. government has been asked to list 
it as a threatened or endangered species. Thousands of walruses 
abandoned retreating ice floes--and in some cases their pups -- during 
2007's remarkable melt, and headed for rocky shores in Alaska. The same 
phenomenon appears to be unfolding again this fall.

"It seems no matter where you look--on the ground, in the air, or in 
the water -- we're seeing signs of rapid change," says lead author Eric 
Post, a biologist at Penn State University. He's heading a study of the 
biological responses to climate change for International Polar Year, 
currently wrapping up.

Red foxes are also moving north, displacing Arctic foxes. "They're 
chasing them out," says co-author David Hik, a biologist at the 
University of Alberta and executive director of the Canadian 
International Polar Year Secretariat.

Hik says the impacts of the changing ecological dynamics can be far-
reaching, and in many cases are still poorly understood.