Stories tagged arctic
Tusk, tusk: A pair of narwhals surface in the Arctic waters. A new study says that the sea creatures are the most at risk to changes from global warming
Courtesy Glenn WilliamsIs there a more overlooked creature of the animal kingdom than the narwhal? Granted, it lives in the frosty waters of the Arctic Ocean and has a twisted, mean-looking tusk, but why don’t we give the narwhal more love?
Global climate change researchers are taking note of the odd sea beast. They’ve categorized the narwhal as being the sea creature most at risk from global warming changes. The pronouncement was made following in-depth analysis of how potential environmental problems that could affect the 11 marine animals that live year-round in the Artic region.
Polar bears, which have been generally considered the most “at-risk” animals from global warming, came in second place in the rankings.
Right now there are actually a lot more narwhals in the Arctic region (50,000 to 80,000) than polar bears (20,000). But researchers feel the overall impacts of global warming could have a quicker, more devastating impact on narwhals.
What’s the difference? Adaptability. Polar bears are able to gather food either by swimming or roaming land. As ice sheets diminish, they can forage for food on land.
Narwhals, on the other hand, are highly specialized creatures. A main feeding practice is diving to depths of 6,000 feet to feed on halibut. They live in areas with 99-percent ice cover. If that ice area diminishes, predators like orcas and polar bears will have easier access to getting to narwhals. And warming waters could send the narwhal’s favorite food of halibut to non-icy areas as well.
Following narwhals and polar bears as the most at-risk Arctic animals were the hooded seal, bowhead whale and walrus. Least at-risk are ringed seals and bearded seals according to the study.
Aerial view: A group of narwhals can be seen swimming together from an aerial view.
Courtesy narwhal.infoBTW: Here’s a little more general information about narwhals:
• They don’t use their tusks for hunting. Males do have “duels” with each other using the tusks to establish dominance. Male tusks can grow up to be 10 feet long. Females grow a much smaller tusk. The tusks are also twisted in a corkscrew fashion.
• An adult narwhal can measure to around 25 feet in length. Males can weigh up to 3,500 pounds while females are about 2,200 pounds.
• The animals also exclusively hunt under thick ice sheets.
• Inuit legends has it that the narwhal was created when a woman holding onto a harpoon had been pulled into the ocean and twisted around the harpoon. The submerged woman was wrapped around a beluga whale on the other end of the harpoon, and that is how the narwhal was created.
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Fighting for survival?: Delays by the Department of Interior on putting polar bears on the endangered list have made some congressional leaders upset. What do you think about this?
Courtesy wikipediaCongressional environmentalists were getting cranky last week as deadlines are coming and going on giving polar bears endangered species protection. At the same time, deadlines are coming to open up some prime polar bear locations to oil exploration.
The Chukchi Sea, home to about a fifth of the world’s polar bears, could be opened to oil and natural gas expeditions next week through the action of one Interior Department division.
Congressional environmentalists, who want to see polar bears be added to the endangered list, claim they were promised that action would happen earlier this month. Now, they claim, the delay is being made to keep the Chukchi open to energy discoveries.
Proponents of global climate change say that melting ice caps in the Arctic are threatening the polar bear population. One study completed this fall predicts that up to two thirds of the polar bear population could be gone by the middle of this century if current warming trends continue.
Interior officials testifying at Congress yesterday said that the delay on adding polar bears to the endangered list is due to a desire to assure that Congress and the public will understand the decision when it is made public.
What do you think of all of this? Share your thoughts here with other Science Buzz readers.
Get your swimtrunks!: Next August is looking even better! (image by toddraden on flickr.com)The Northwest Passage, a long-sought sea route from Europe to Asia, finally revealed itself this summer. The arctic sea ice that had made such a journey impossible until now has temporarily melted, thanks to Earth’s tidy new roommate, Global Warming.
The Northwest Passage has been theorized and sought after since the Fifteenth century, as European powers desired a faster sea route to Asia, via the north Atlantic. The Italian explorer, John Cabot, made the first attempt to find the passage in 1497, an act that would usher in half a millennia of failed expeditions. In the last century, several explorers have successfully traversed the waters of the Canadian arctic, although only with ice-fortified ships, and often through very shallow waterways. This August, however, sattelite images have confirmed a navigable and ice-free Northwest Passage.
Many climate models have predicted the opening of the passage with the onset of global warming, but none had suggested that it would happen so soon (predictions had ranged from 2012 to 2080). The waterways will certainly freeze over during the winter, although climate scientists expect that they will be open for increasing durations in summers to come.
John Cabot, after five hundred years of being lost at sea, was understandably nonplussed by the news. “It’s great, I guess,” says Cabot, “It’s just, I wish… argh.” The maritime explorer seemed excited about the prospect of faster trade with “the Orient,” however, as a route through the Arctic Ocean would cut 4000 miles off of a trip from Europe to Asia. On his future plans for international trade, Cabot simply stated, “Spices. Spices, and silks, and precious stones.”
Separation anxiety: Researchers are finding that thinning ice in the Arctic Ocean is leading to an increased number of walrus pups being separated from their mothers. The pups, which have no hunting skills, are in a jam to find food. (Photo by Adre Boffin)The issue of global warming took on added significance in the eyes of many skeptics when reports came out that polar bears were drowning in the Arctic because ice sheets were getting too thin. Now, new news from the Arctic may up the ante on “animal emotion” meter.
Coast Guard icebreakers going through Arctic waters have found more “orphaned” walruses on ice floes than they ever seen before, report Science Daily. And the thinking is that walrus mothers have to abandon their pups on thinner ice as they follow the thicker ice that’s retreating north.
One recent Coast Guard unit reported seeing nine abandoned walrus pups in one trip. Years ago, it was a sight that was never seen.
Being abandoned is a almost always fatal for a walrus pup. The moms dive into the water to find food – bottom-dwelling aquatic animals – for the pups. But if the ice isn’t thick and strong enough to support the adults, they little ones go hungry. Adult walruses can dive as deep as 600 feet to find food.
“We were on a station for 24 hours, and the calves would be swimming around us crying. We couldn’t rescue them,” said Carin Ashjian, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
That same research crew found a large pool of warmer ocean water surrounding the area with all the abandoned walrus pups. That water has a temperature of 44-degrees, which is about six degrees warmer than water temperatures taken at the same spot at the same time of year two years earlier.
Polar Bear: Courtesy Wikipedia Images
This past week the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) proclaimed toxic chemicals are impairing numerous Arctic animals. Immune system malfunctions, signs of weakened bone growth and hormone disturbances are a few noted implications due to toxic chemical exposure. Even though Arctic regions are a considerable distance from industrial centers, many chemicals get swept north by winds and ocean currents.
Harmful toxins
Flame-retardants, pesticides, fluorinated chemicals as well as global climate changes are all factors contributing to the decline in healthy Arctic animals. The WWF reported Arctic chemical contamination threatens the survival of many of the region’s animal species, who are also facing possible habitat and food supply loss.
Animals Affected
Specific animals being affected include polar bears, beluga whales, seals and seabirds. Beluga carcasses, found in the St. Lawrence estuary in Canada, have been treated as toxic waste due to high toxicity levels. Samantha Smith, Swiss-based director of the international arctic program stated, “We can no longer ignore the proof that chemicals are damaging the health of wild animals.”
What do you think? Is it important to address Arctic animal wildlife concerns? What can be done to reduce the spread of harmful toxins?
A model and a fossil show how Tikaalik Roseae might have lived in shallow stream beds about 375 million years ago.
What lived in water, could do push ups and might be the missing link in the evolution of sea creatures and land animals?
It’s Tiktaalik roseae, a crocodile-like creature that lived most of the time in the water, but ventured on land occasionally. Fossil remains of the large, nearly 400-million-year-old creature were recently found north of the Arctic Circle in Canada.
It’s the first solid fossil evidence that shows the transformation of aquatic animals into being land creatures. Tiktaalik specimens that were found range in length from four to nine feet long and look like a cross between a fish and a crocodile. They swam in shallow streams in what at the time, around 375 million years ago, was believed to be a subtropical climate. Tiktaalik were meat eaters.
The key that makes researchers believe it went up onto land is that Tiktaalik’s front fins had a bone structure that is much like a shoulder, upper arm, elbow, forearm and wrist. It’s believed the creatures would slither out of the water and pull themselves around on land much like seals do today.
The head structure of Tiktaalik is also a piece of evidence in the water-to-land evolution. It had a crocodile-like head, including eyes on top of the skull rather than on the side, like fish. It could also move its head independently of its shoulders like land animals can do today. But the creature’s jaws and snout were very fishlike. Researchers think it might have had both a set of lungs and gills for breathing. But like fish, it had scales and fins.
Scientists are planning to return to the Artic region to do further digging, but due to the cold climate there today, there is just a short window for doing field research. But much of what scientists are seeing in Tiktaalik confirms their guesses as to how water creatures could eventually convert to land animals.
The new findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Nature. Researchers have set up their own Tikaalik website with much more information about the discovery.
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