{"id":23124,"date":"2022-12-13T17:24:19","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T17:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/13\/starving-seabirds-on-alaska-coast-show-climate-change-peril\/"},"modified":"2022-12-13T17:24:19","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T17:24:19","slug":"starving-seabirds-on-alaska-coast-show-climate-change-peril","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/13\/starving-seabirds-on-alaska-coast-show-climate-change-peril\/","title":{"rendered":"Starving seabirds on Alaska coast show climate change peril"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\n
<\/p>\n

\n

WASHINGTON — <\/span>Dead and dying seabirds collected on the coasts of the northern Bering and southern Chukchi seas over the past six years reveal how the Arctic’s fast-changing climate is threatening the ecosystems and people who live there, according to a report released Tuesday by U.S. scientists. <\/p>\n

Local communities have reported numerous emaciated bodies of seabirds \u2014 including shearwaters, auklets and murres \u2014 that usually eat plankton, krill or fish, but appear to have had difficulty finding sufficient food. The hundreds of distressed and dead birds are only a fraction of ones that starved, scientists say. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2017, we\u2019ve had multi-species seabird die-offs in the Bering Strait region,\u201d said Gay Sheffield, a biologist at University of Alaska Fairbanks, based in Nome, Alaska and a co-author of the report. \u201cThe one commonality is emaciation, or starvation.\u201d <\/p>\n

The seabirds are struggling because of climate-linked ecosystem shifts \u2014 which can affect the supply and the timing of available food \u2014 as well as a harmful algal bloom and a viral outbreak in the region, she said. <\/p>\n

And their peril jeopardizes the human communities, as well: \u201cBirds are essential to our region \u2014 they are nutritionally and economically essential,\u201d said Sheffield. <\/p>\n

The data on seabirds is part of an annual report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, called the \u201cArctic Report Card,\u201d that documents changes in a region warming faster than anywhere else on Earth. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith climate change, the food chain is changing rapidly,\u201d said Don Lyons, a conservation scientist at the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute, who was not involved in the report. \u201cFood isn\u2019t predictable in the way it used to be, in terms of where the food is, at different times of the year.”<\/p>\n

While seabirds naturally experience some lean years, the report documents a worrying pattern, said Lyons. \u201cIt seems like we\u2019ve passed a tipping point \u2014 we\u2019ve moved into a new regime where events that we used to think of as rare and unusual are now common and frequent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past year, Arctic annual surface air temperatures were the sixth warmest since records began in 1900, the report found. And satellite records revealed that for several weeks last summer, large regions near the North Pole were virtually clear of sea ice. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe sea ice extent was much lower than long-term average,\u201d said Walt Meier, a sea ice expert at the University of Colorado Boulder and a co-author of the report. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe most notable thing we saw was during the summer, we saw a lot of open-water areas up near the North Pole, which was once very rare,\u201d he said. \u201cSeveral kilometers with very little or no ice, within a couple hundred kilometers of the North Pole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe changes that are happening in the Arctic are so fast and so profound,\u201d said Peter Marra, a conservation biologist at Georgetown University, who was not involved in the report.<\/p>\n

Seabirds are metaphorical canaries in the coal mines, when it comes to showing broader ecosystem changes, Marra said, adding, \u201cWe need to do a much better job of monitoring these sentinel populations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Follow Christina Larson on Twitter: @larsonchristina<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n