About twelve hours after receiving the phone call, I had dropped all other plans and I was on a plane to Alaska. Within several days we mobilized two helicopters and pilots up to the coast, rounded up all the necessary gear, and performed the capture near Kaktovik. After examining the bear closely, fortunately, she was not in ill health and she was not experiencing any complications from previous sampling. Although it is difficult to know, it seems she simply had a tough spring, perhaps due to poor hunting success or other factors.

I did not return to Laramie until the following Monday, after missing the first week of classes on campus. I was very happy that the safety of Kaktovik residents and of the bear had not been jeopardized, but it was certainly a reminder of the important complexities involved with studying polar bears on the north slope.

Today, as I write this, I have about two hours to finish packing before departing for Barrow, Alaska. My advisor Dr. Hank Harlow and I will arrive in Barrow tomorrow night at about 7:15 pm, where it will be around 25 to 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) and hopefully with a little snow on the ground. My co-advisor, Dr. Merav Ben-David, will arrive the following morning, and eventually a total of about 20 personnel will show up. The group includes our collaborators from USGS and USFWS, a photographer, a film crew, a high school teacher, and several other Arctic-based research groups. The other projects are varied, focusing on primary production in sea water, algal growth on the underside of sea ice, and sea birds and mammals. All 20 personnel will be ferried onto the USCG icebreaker Polar Sea via helicopter, hopefully on Saturday. Once onboard, we will cruise towards the edge of the sea ice, about 400 miles north of Barrow.

Every year, the sea ice reaches it minimum extent around mid-September, and this year’s minimum appears to have occurred on September 12th. The National Snow and Ice Data Center has posted a map and description here; from this point on, the ice will be expanding as temperatures drop below freezing across the Arctic. Thus, as we cruise north, the ice will be slowly expanding south towards us.

The website Cryosphere Today has a color-coded map depicting current sea ice conditions, shown below. Remarkably, the three smallest minimum extents during the era of satellite measurements – beginning 1979 – are 2009, 2008, and 2007. In other words, the Arctic has had less ice in the last three summers than in any other summer since 1979.

Arctic sea ice conditions as of September 22, 2009.

I am very excited about working from the icebreaker. It is an incredibly rare opportunity to not only get a sense of the far northern sea ice environment, but also to collect valuable data from a important species that is so strongly associated with it.

Polar bear tracks in the snow along the Arctic coast in northern Alaska, in October 2008.

Dr. Henry Harlow, Dr. Merav Ben-David, and John Whiteman (left to right) with an adult male polar bear who has been sedated for measurements. They’re sitting in front of a temporary windbreak (to make measurements easier) on sea ice off the northern coast of Alaska in October 2008.

Summer is a critical time for polar bears and climate change is lengthening Arctic summers, which could have a substantial effect on bear populations. However, much of what is known about polar bears comes from studying them out on Arctic sea ice during late winter and spring. During summer, most sea ice retreats far to the north, leaving some bears on shore for several months. Scientists suspect that these bears face difficult conditions on land; temperatures are warm and there’s little to eat. In contrast, some bears follow the retreating ice north, where temperatures are cooler and there may be opportunities to hunt seals.

To find out how polar bears fare in the summer, PhD candidate John Whiteman and his advisors Drs. Henry Harlow and Merav Ben-David are collaborating with scientists from the US Geological Survey and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They are capturing and examining bears in early summer and attaching GPS-tracking collars, then re-capturing the same bears in late summer and examining them again. Comparing early- and late-summer indicators of body fat, muscle, and diet tells the scientists how well polar bears are faring in summer months. Additionally, they can use this information to forecast how longer Arctic summers may affect polar bear populations.