Beaufort Sea Census
Page 3 of 3
Ph.D. student Greg Thiemann and pilot Benedikt Segura open up camp in one of the historic buildings at Herschel Island, Yukon. The Canadian Wildlife Service uses the building as a base for their work when covering the area between the Alaska border and Tuktoyaktuk. Click the image to enlarge.
Long Project
The population estimation project began in the U.S. in 2001 and was expanded to include Canada in 2003. Data collection will continue next spring and possibly the year afterwards, depending on funding. This past spring two Canadian teams and one in Alaska captured a total 393 bears. In Canada, Stirling's two teams captured a total of 257 bears. In Alaska, Amstrup's team captured 136, of which 69% had never been captured before.
In addition to studying the Southern Beaufort Sea bears, Stirling's team is conducting a census of the Northern Beaufort Sea population. Those bears seldom venture into the U.S., although they do overlap to some degree with the Southern Beaufort Sea population. Thus, it is important to assess the degree to which hunters that live in the Canadian portion of the Southern Beaufort Sea are taking bears from each population.
Conducting a thorough polar bear census in the Arctic is an extremely expensive endeavor that requires funding from a number of sources. Major contributors to this study include BP Exploration Alaska, Inc.; the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the Northwest Territories Department of Resources, Wildlife, and Economic Development; the Inuvialuit Game Council of Northwest Territories; the North Slope Borough Wildlife Department; the Polar Continental Shelf Project; the Canadian Wildlife Service; and Conoco-Phillips Alaska Inc. With the additional help from PBI, it is hoped that this project will provide the best insights ever into the size and status of polar populations in the Southern Beaufort Sea.
The population estimation project began in the U.S. in 2001 and was expanded to include Canada in 2003. Data collection will continue next spring and possibly the year afterwards, depending on funding. This past spring two Canadian teams and one in Alaska captured a total 393 bears. In Canada, Stirling's two teams captured a total of 257 bears. In Alaska, Amstrup's team captured 136, of which 69% had never been captured before.
In addition to studying the Southern Beaufort Sea bears, Stirling's team is conducting a census of the Northern Beaufort Sea population. Those bears seldom venture into the U.S., although they do overlap to some degree with the Southern Beaufort Sea population. Thus, it is important to assess the degree to which hunters that live in the Canadian portion of the Southern Beaufort Sea are taking bears from each population.
Conducting a thorough polar bear census in the Arctic is an extremely expensive endeavor that requires funding from a number of sources. Major contributors to this study include BP Exploration Alaska, Inc.; the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the Northwest Territories Department of Resources, Wildlife, and Economic Development; the Inuvialuit Game Council of Northwest Territories; the North Slope Borough Wildlife Department; the Polar Continental Shelf Project; the Canadian Wildlife Service; and Conoco-Phillips Alaska Inc. With the additional help from PBI, it is hoped that this project will provide the best insights ever into the size and status of polar populations in the Southern Beaufort Sea.
Page 3 of 3