Beaufort Sea Census
An Inuvialuit high school student, Bradley Voudrach, assists the Canadian team.
PBI has assisted in funding a major polar bear population study in the Southern Beaufort Sea, an icy territory that spans far northwestern Canada through northern Alaska. Two teams of scientists, one headed by Dr. Steven C. Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey and the other by Dr. Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service, have been collecting data for the project, which is central to polar bear conservation efforts. The research should yield the best-ever estimate of the number of bears in the region and help scientists gain a better understanding of the population's status and trend.
"Knowledge of population boundaries, size, and trend are necessary to manage the sustainable harvest of polar bears," says Stirling, "and to evaluate the possible risks of other human activities."
A Shared Population
The joint project marks the first time that scientists in both countries have coordinated their efforts on a polar-bear census. The two nations decided to work together after movement studies revealed the extent to which hunters from the Baillie Islands in Canada to Icy Cape in Alaska share bears that range across the southern portion of the Beaufort Sea.
"Before the mid-1980s, we managed bears in Canada and Alaska on the assumption that they were two separate populations," says Stirling. "We discovered, however, that there are actually two populations in the Beaufort Sea, a southern one and a northern one, and that the southern population is shared between the two nations."
"Knowledge of population boundaries, size, and trend are necessary to manage the sustainable harvest of polar bears," says Stirling, "and to evaluate the possible risks of other human activities."
A Shared Population
The joint project marks the first time that scientists in both countries have coordinated their efforts on a polar-bear census. The two nations decided to work together after movement studies revealed the extent to which hunters from the Baillie Islands in Canada to Icy Cape in Alaska share bears that range across the southern portion of the Beaufort Sea.
"Before the mid-1980s, we managed bears in Canada and Alaska on the assumption that they were two separate populations," says Stirling. "We discovered, however, that there are actually two populations in the Beaufort Sea, a southern one and a northern one, and that the southern population is shared between the two nations."