Russian US cooperation leads in Central Arctic ecosystem

Joel Berger, wildlife conservation society
In the early spring on Russian Wrangel Island dawn light comes to 03:45 and of heaven for 16 hours a day. My Russian colleagues and I make a good progress, the more than 20 herds of musk ox, sampling, to collect valuable data. Yesterday, while hiking in the mountains we crossed again polar bear tracks. Winter sea ice around the Arctic Island disappears, question I wonder if the bears soon add musk oxen on their diet, rather than the usual fare of the seals.
The contrasts between field research in Russia and Alaska are sharp, and nowhere more so than in the area of security. Here there are no seatbelts on helicopters, no blades caused Joel Berger of the Wildlife Conservation Society is blogging from the Arctic for Yale environment 360. This is the third blog in a series.
To read the previous post.Snowmobiling (in which case we get stuck), no replacement tents, bivy bag or sleeping bag for emergencies. Often our communication work. I know the saying as well – there are old biologists and there are fat biologists, but there are no old, bold biologists - here is not familiar.
Today, the winds, and it is located near whiteout conditions. I admire the tenacity of my employees. With little modern technology and minimal air support persist them. Yesterday, the temperature again more winter with mercury at 15 degrees F. Soon, we store to relocate and travel 50 miles in an unheated cabin. My Russian colleagues suffer these hardships for a reason - Wrangels animals, better to understand their movements and ecology of the island.
I'm coming on Wrangel Island, to help them in this research, my main goal, join my colleagues and scientists learn to use cameras, measure the dimensions of the musk ox from a distance. I have also come
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Improving a polar bear and her cubs on the remains of a musk ox on Wrangel Island.to scientific cooperation between Russia and the United States in Beringia, the area of Northwest of Alaska and extreme northeast of Russia, where two countries and continents - break through the Bering Sea. No region of the world has affected more by climate change as the Arctic, and I am confident that island to understand science better helps the data that we collect on musk oxen and other wildlife on Wrangel, how fast warming of Russian and the North American Arctic has implications.As howling of the wind outside our cottage, I show a PowerPoint presentation to some of the Russian employees and lots of my small computer screen. I'll focus on the how and why we translate scientific studies, my words from my Russian American translator, Lizza Protas do. I explain why publishing important, so that all the time and money that go into the research can be used for the benefit of others and the generations that come after us.
I spent years in the Arctic of Alaska and one reason why I wanted to Wrangel Island - 300 miles north of the Arctic circle - was to see how fast warming here occurs and what kind of data is available. I was happy to learn that a meteorological station is continuously working on Wrangel since 1926. My Russian colleagues gave me digital copies of their weather records and my U.S. colleagues and I will study this important data to compare temperature trends on Wrangel with data from North-Western of Alaska.
No significant climate-change studies conducted on Wrangel Island. Dr. Alexander Gruzdev, Director of the Wrangel Island nature reserve told me, that he observed no major shifts in the brief chronology of the island many polar bears. But large parts of the Siberian Arctic
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Scientists and staff charge a Russian MIL MI-8 helicopter on Wrangel Island.experiencing rapid warming, sea ice disappear (like in the Arctic) and in the North of Siberia Kettle-like Lakes drained than permafrost State and cracks.Five hundred miles to the Southeast, on the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Strait died more than 50 Muskox suddenly in 2011 from through frozen mud driven by 60 mph winds feeding into a Bay near the town of Shishmaref, Alaska will be flooded. Also on the Alaska side of Beringia the shorter snow hardener for my native American Guide season and warm temperatures already make it their villages to use their snowmobiles, frozen rivers and shores in pursuit of caribou, the crucial food supply role to travel.
The good news is that there are options on the Russian and American sides of the Beringia. Shared Beringia heritage program is Russian and American scientists, as well as the people of Alaska and Russia's Chukotka Autonomous Region, to include cooperation on research and citizen science to study nature and climate change on both sides of the Bering Sea.
This is the third of three blog posts from the field of conservation biologist Joel Berger, who is a senior scientist with the wildlife conservation society and the John J. Craighead Chair Wildlife Biology at the University of Montana.
Previous posts:

On far flung Wrangel Island sizes a scientist, musk ox
Polar is studying a menagerie on an island in the Arctic Russia




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