Preparing for the 2009 Field Season

In 2008 fledging success of Black Guillemots was again low.  Unlike past years, when chicks died as a result of prospecting Horned Puffins occupying nest sites and a lack of arctic cod, in 2008 chicks had to deal with snow storms blocking nest entrances and stranded polar bears flipping over nests as they scavenged the beaches for food.

The 2009 field season promises to be another interesting one as the melt season begins with the Arctic Basin having a large percentage of thin first-year ice, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Should ice melt progress as it has in recent years the period when parents are feeding chicks (late July to early September) will see the pack ice retreat well away from the island.  Black Guillemots will then be unable to find arctic cod, their preferred prey and most accessible under pack ice.  Should the ice retreat rapidly and strand polar bears on the beach, the guillemots and puffins breeding on the island (and the researchers studying them) will have to deal with displaced bears wandering the island looking for food.

Although the small carbon-footprint of our field camp complicates communications from Cooper Island, we hope to be able to provide regular text and photo updates to this website during the June-September field season. Please check back to see what is happening with the birds, the ice, the bears and us as the summer progresses.

Cooper Island research featured in national Polar-Palooza Tour

The long-term data set on seabird breeding biology, as well as recent observations on the increase of polar bears on the Alaskan Beaufort Sea coast are being included in an International Polar Year public outreach and education program called Polar-Palooza: Stories from a changing planet.

George Divoky participated in Polar-Palooza public presentations and teacher workshops last April in Salt Lake City and Norman, Oklahoma, this fall in Cleveland and Richmond, Virginia and in January 2009 in Brownsville and Houston, Texas.  A video produced for Polar-Palooza on Cooper Island research and shown on National Geographic television last April is available at this link. 

Recent Polar-Palooza presentations have featured a rap/pop video presenting lyrics and images that urge the listener to "Take AIM at Climate Change" - with AIM standing for Adapt, Innovate and Mitigate. Click on this link to see the video on YouTube.

Polar-Palooza presentations have also featured video of polar bears visiting Cooper Island in 2007 and 2008. Once extremely rare visitors to the island, they are now regular in late July and August.  There is a video on YouTube of a polar bear that visited our research cabin in mid-August 2008.

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Recent publication

The impacts of changes in arctic pack ice on Cooper Island seabirds are included in a recent publication that examines the biological consequences of ice melt in the Arctic and Antarctic:

High latitude changes in ice dynamics and their impact on polar marine ecosystems

Moline, M. A., N. J. Karnovsky, Z. Brown, G. J. Divoky, T. R. Frazer, C. A. Jacoby, J. J. Torres and W. R. Fraser. 2008. Pp 267-319 in: The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology 2008. R. S. Ostfeld and W. H. Schlesinger (eds.). Annals New York Acad. Sci., 1134.  View or download the publication at this link.

Learn more about our research.