Arctic animals doing better, but not close to pole

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 18 Mar 10;

WASHINGTON – The overall number of animals in the Arctic has increased over the past 40 years ago, according to a new international study. But critters who live closest to the North Pole are disappearing.

The report by the United Nations and other groups released Wednesday at a conference in Miami concludes that birds, mammals and fish have increased by about 16 percent since 1970. That's mostly because of decades-old hunting restrictions. The number of geese have about doubled. Marine mammals, such as certain whales, are also rebounding.

The biggest improvement was in the lower regions of the Artic, where the number of animals, especially those that live in the water, are up about 46 percent.

However, scientists aren't celebrating the increase. Species in what is called the High Arctic dropped by a quarter between 1970 and 2004. North American caribou are down about one-third.

"What we're seeing is that there's winners and losers with rapid changes in the Arctic," said Mike Gill, a Canadian government researcher and study co-author. He's chairman of the international Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program, which organized the study.

Study author Louise McRae, a conservation biologist at the Zoological Society of London, said the drop in the High Arctic was most worrisome. That's because that region is the area where global warming occurs fastest and is projected to worsen, so the pressure on species will only increase, she added.

There's not enough evidence yet to blame global warming for the loss of species, but what is happening, is "largely in line with what would be predicted with climate change," Gill said.

The area with the biggest losses also has sea ice shrinking faster than predicted, and species like polar bears and whales called narwhals are dependent on sea ice, the report said.

The study compared how species were doing in the Arctic parts of three oceans. Species living in the Arctic portion of the Pacific Ocean were doing far better than they used to, while those in the northern parts of the Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean were not changed much over time, the report said.

Animals doing better include bowhead whales, white-tailed eagles, and the Atlantic Puffin. Those doing worse include the Atlantic cod, lemmings, the brown bear and the polar bear in the western Hudson Bay. The data on polar bears elsewhere isn't good enough to make any conclusions.

The Arctic Species Trend Index: http://www.asti.is/images/stories/asti%20report.pdf


High Arctic Species on Thin Ice
ScienceDaily 17 Mar 10;

A new assessment of the Arctic's biodiversity reports a 26 per cent decline in species populations in the high Arctic.

Populations of lemmings, caribou and red knot are some of the species that have experienced declines over the past 34 years, according to the first report from The Arctic Species Trend Index (ASTI), which provides crucial information on how the Arctic's ecosystems and wildlife are responding to environmental change.

While some of these declines may be part of a natural cycle, there is concern that pressures such as climate change may be exacerbating natural cyclic declines.

In contrast, population levels of species living in the sub-Arctic and low Arctic are relatively stable and in some cases, increasing. Populations of marine mammals, including bowhead whales found in the low Arctic, may have benefited from the recent tightening of hunting laws. Some fish species have also experienced population increases in response to rising sea temperatures.

"Rapid changes to the Arctic's ecosystems will have consequences for the Arctic that will be felt globally. The Arctic is host to abundant and diverse wildlife populations, many of which migrate annually from all regions of the globe. This region acts as a critical component in the Earth's physical, chemical, and biological regulatory system," says lead-author Louise McRae from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

Data collected on migratory Arctic shorebirds show that their numbers have also decreased. Further research is now needed to determine whether this is the result of changes in the Arctic or at other stopover sites on their migration.

Louise McRae adds: "Migratory Arctic species such as brent goose, dunlin and turnstone are regular visitors to the UK's shores. We need to sit up and take notice of what's happening in other parts of the world if we want to continue to experience a diversity of wildlife on our own doorstep."

The ASTI includes almost 1,000 datasets on Arctic species population trends, including representation from 35 per cent of all known vertebrate species found in the Arctic.

Co-author Christoph Zöckler from the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre says: "The establishment of these results comes at a crucial time for finding accurate indicators to monitor global biodiversity as governments strive to meet their targets of reducing biodiversity loss."

The findings of the first ASTI report will be presented at the 'State of the Arctic' Conference in Miami, USA. The full report will be available to download from http://www.asti.is on Wednesday 17th March, 2010.