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Development of a Pan‐Arctic Monitoring Plan for Polar Bears Background Paper

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Development of a Pan‐Arctic Monitoring Plan for Polar Bears Background Paper CAFF Monitoring Series Report No. 1 January 2011 DEVELOPMENT OF A PAN‐ARCTIC MONITORING PLAN FOR POLAR BEARS BACKGROUND PAPER Dag Vongraven and Elizabeth Peacock ARCTIC COUNCIL DEVELOPMENT OF A PAN‐ARCTIC MONITORING PLAN FOR POLAR BEARS Acknowledgements BACKGROUND PAPER The Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) is a Working Group of the Arctic Council. Author Dag Vongraven Table of Contents CAFF Designated Agencies: Norwegian Polar Institute Foreword • Directorate for Nature Management, Trondheim, Norway Elizabeth Peacock • Environment Canada, Ottawa, Canada US Geological Survey, 1. Introduction Alaska Science Center • Faroese Museum of Natural History, Tórshavn, Faroe Islands (Kingdom of Denmark) 1 1.1 Project objectives 2 • Finnish Ministry of the Environment, Helsinki, Finland Editing and layout 1.2 Definition of monitoring 2 • Icelandic Institute of Natural History, Reykjavik, Iceland Tom Barry 1.3 Adaptive management/implementation 2 • The Ministry of Domestic Affairs, Nature and Environment, Greenland 2. Review of biology and natural history • Russian Federation Ministry of Natural Resources, Moscow, Russia 2.1 Reproductive and vital rates 3 2.2 Movement/migrations 4 • Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Stockholm, Sweden 2.3 Diet 4 • United States Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Anchorage, Alaska 2.4 Diseases, parasites and pathogens 4 CAFF Permanent Participant Organizations: 3. Polar bear subpopulations • Aleut International Association (AIA) 3.1 Distribution 5 • Arctic Athabaskan Council (AAC) 3.2 Subpopulations/management units 5 • Gwich’in Council International (GCI) 3.3 Presently delineated populations 5 3.3.1 Arctic Basin (AB) 5 • Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) – Greenland, Alaska and Canada 3.3.2 Baffin Bay (BB) 6 • Russian Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) 3.3.3 Barents Sea (BS) 7 3.3.4 Chukchi Sea (CS) 7 • Saami Council 3.3.5 Davis Strait (DS) 8 This publication should be cited as: 3.3.6 East Greenland (EG) 8 Vongraven, D and Peacock, E. Development of a pan-Arctic monitoring plan for polar bears:background paper. Circumpolar 3.3.7 Foxe Basin (FB) 9 Biodiversity Monitoring Programme, CAFF Monitoring Series Report No.1, January 2011, CAFF International Secretariat, 3.3.8 Gulf of Boothia (GB) 9 Akureyri, Iceland. ISBN 978-9935-431-01-1 3.3.9 Kane Basin (KB) 10 3.3.10 Kara Sea (KS) 10 10 The authors would like to thank the US Marine Mammal Commission for financial support; Andrei Boltunov, Kjetil Sagerup 3.3.11 Lancaster Sound (LS) 3.3.12 Laptev Sea (LP) 10 and Jon Aars for contributions; Anders Skoglund for making the maps; and Erik W. Born, Karyn D. Rode, Chris Servheen and 3.3.13 M’Clintock Channel (MC) 11 Ian Stirling for their reviews of the manuscript. 3.3.14 Northern Beaufort Sea (NB) 11 3.3.15 Norwegian Bay (NW) 12 Cover photo by Morten Ekker 3.3.16 Southern Beaufort Sea (SB) 13 3.3.17 Southern Hudson Bay (SH) 13 For more information please contact: 3.3.18 Viscount Melville Sound (VM) 13 CAFF International Secretariat 3.3.19 Western Hudson Bay (WH) 13 Borgir, Nordurslod 3.4 Alternative delineations 14 600 Akureyri, Iceland Phone: +354 462-3350 4. Pressures and likely impacts on polar bears Fax: +354 462-3390 4.1 Climate warming 15 Email: [email protected] 4.1.1 Observed change 15 Internet: http://www.caff.is 4.1.2 Projected change 15 4.1.3 Effects on polar bears 15 4.2 Harvest 16 4.3 Pollution 17 4.4 Oil, gas and mineral developments 18 4.5 Tourism/disturbance 19 CAFF Designated Area 5. Exisiting monitoring Foreword 5.1 Monitoring capacity 21 5.1.1 Canada 21 5.1.2 United States 21 Polar bears are a powerful Arctic icon – symbolizing a remote, often misunderstood region of the 5.1.3 Russia 21 planet. However, the value of polar bears goes beyond that of an icon – they hold significant cultural 5.1.4 Norway 22 and spiritual value for Inuit peoples, who have shared the Arctic with this species for millennia. 5.1.5 Greenland 22 As a top predator, they are a critical element of the Arctic marine environment, exerting a direct 6. Monitoring metrics and methods influence on a number of prey species and thereby, indirectly, having a cascading effect on the 6.1 Abundance 24 entire marine food chain. Loss of this species from the Arctic marine ecosystem could have dramatic 6.1.1 Metrics 24 and unpredictable impacts. 6.1.2 Methods 24 6.2 Trend: recruitment, mortality and growth 26 Despite the sustained attention given to polar bears and concerns raised regarding the impacts 6.2.1 Metrics 26 of climate change, we have only limited baseline information on most populations and a poor 6.2.2 Methods 26 understanding of how polar bears have and will continue to respond to a rapidly changing climate. 6.3 Distribution 30 Effective conservation actions require not only an understanding of polar bear trends across the Arctic, 6.3.1 Metrics 30 but a clear understanding of the mechanisms driving those trends. To achieve this understanding, 6.3.2 Methods 30 an efficient and coordinated pan-arctic research and monitoring effort is urgently needed. Indeed, 6.4 Human-caused mortality 30 such a plan was called for in the March, 2009 Meeting of the Parties to the 1973 Agreement on Polar 6.4.1 Metrics 30 Bears. 6.4.2 Methods 31 6.5 Human/bear conflicts and problem bears 31 6.5.1 Metrics 31 Mike Gill 6.5.2 Methods 31 Chair 6.6 Individual condition and health 31 Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program 6.6.1 Metrics 31 Environment Canada 6.6.2 Methods 32 6.7 Habitat 32 6.7.1 Metrics 32 6.7.2 Methods 33 6.8 Monitoring changing food-webs 33 7. Community based monitoring 34 8. Knowledge gaps and research needs 35 9. Literature cited 38 Arctic Biodiversity Trends 2010 6 Polar bear monitoring 1 Polar bears (Ursus maritimus), by their very nature, and the extreme, remote environment in which they live, are inherently difficult to study and monitor. Monitoring polar bear populations is both arduous and costly and, to be effective, must be a long-term commitment. There are few jurisdictional governments and management boards with a mandate for polar bear 1. Introduction research and management, and many have limited resources. Although population monitoring of polar bears has been a focus to some degree within most jurisdictions around the Arctic, of the 19 subpopulations recognised by the IUCN/ Species Survival Commission Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG), adequate scientific trend data exist for only three of the subpopulations, fair trend data for five and poor or no trend data for the remaining 11 subpopulations (PBSG 2010a). There are especially critical knowledge gaps for the subpopulations in East Greenland, in the Russian Kara and Laptev seas, and in the Chukchi Sea, which is shared between Russia and the United States. The range covered by these subpopulations represents a third of the total area (approx. 23 million km2) of polar bears’ current range, and more than half if the Arctic Basin is included. If we use popular terms, we know close to nothing about polar bears in this portion of their range. As summer sea-ice extent, and to a lesser degree, spring-time extent, continues to retreat, outpacing model forecasts (Stroeve et al. 2007, Pedersen et al. 2009), polar bears face the challenge of adapting to rapidly changing habitats. There is a need to use current and synthesised information across the Arctic, and to develop new methods that will facilitate monitoring to generate new knowledge at a pan-Arctic scale. The circumpolar dimension can be lost when efforts are channelled into regional monitoring. Developing and implementing a plan that harmonises local, regional and global efforts will increase our power to detect and understand important trends for polar bears, with particular emphasis on how climate warming may differentially affect populations and habitats. Current knowledge is inadequate for a comprehensive understanding of the present and future impact of climate warming and its interaction with other stressors. The cumulative effects are unknown (Laidre et al. 2008). An integrated pan-Arctic research and monitoring plan will improve the ability to detect future trends, identify the most vulnerable subpopulations and guide effective conservation. There is a need to direct attention and resources where data are deficient to understand the mechanisms that drive trends, and to facilitate more effective and timely conservation response. 1. The term “subpopulation” is determined by IUCN terminology and criteria (IUCN 2010); this term is used interchangeably with management-units. We use the term ‘population’ more generally, or more specifically when referring to population-based methods, which assume demographic and geographic closure. 2. Review presented by the PBSG at the 2009 Meeting of the Parties to the 1973 Agreement on the conservation of polar bears, in Tromsø March 2009. Elizabeth Peacock, US Geological Survey 2 9 Arctic Biodiversity Trends 2010 1.1 Project objectives Our objectives are to provide background science to support the development of: 2. REVIEW OF BIOLOGY AND 1. a circumpolar polar bear monitoring plan, to be adopted across the Arctic that: • identifies the monitoring techniques and optimal sampling regimes that are likely to succeed in the 19 different subpopulations, given specific characteristics and logistics of the subpopulations themselves; NATURAL HISTORY • identifies suites of metrics that can provide parallel lines of evidence of the status of polar bear populations, where intensive research is not possible; • identifies standardized parameters for intensively researched subpopulations, with a specific focus on identifying factors responsible for determining mechanistic relationships and trends in population; • identifies new methods, including less-invasive approaches, for conducting directed research and monitoring, recognizing the need for more effective monitoring; and, • develops population projection models that incorporate response to environmental change.
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