Reflections on the Arctic Breeding Season

Now that we have finished our first project this summer in Alaska, and all of Manomet’s staff is safely home, we are taking some time over the holiday weekend to reflect on the project and our time on the North Slope.  We are now back in New England, readjusting from 24 hours of daylight and the 4 hour time difference.  Transitioning from the vast arctic wilderness to the 4th of July crush of humanity on Cape Cod is a powerful contrast, and an unusual opportunity to reflect on our work and the balance between nature and humans as a whole. 

 

For the first time, we will have detailed scientific knowledge about shorebird breeding success from across the entire Arctic.  In the past, we did our best to piece together a picture of how successful the breeding season was from scattered reports of several disjunct efforts by other groups.  We were always struck by how different things could be in different areas, a reminder of just how vast the Arctic really is.  Now, thanks to the Network, we know that the same protocols were in place at nine sites spanning the Arctic, and the results will give us our clearest understanding ever of how the birds did this year, and how the environment varied across the Arctic.  While we were having an unusually productive year on the Canning River, the camp at Barrow reported snow cover lasting longer than ever, and sparse breeding as the season developed.  Only by combining all of our results can we understand how successful the breeding season was.  And over the next few years, the same sites will give us the best glimpse ever into the survival of these birds as they carry out their annual migrations between the ends of the earth.   

 

Our deeply felt concern over the potential for extensive global climate change motivates this collaborative demographic study.  For the first time we will be able to take stock of the effects of climate change on shorebirds and the habitats upon which they depend across the entire expanse of the North American Arctic.  Individually there is very little that any one of us can do, but working together we hope to put together enough of the puzzle pieces to identify proactive strategies for the federal and state agencies entrusted with managing these wild lands and their diverse resources.  The need to be proactive rather than reactive has never been more poignantly clear than now, watching the environmental catastrophe continuing to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, as pressures for offshore drilling continue in the Arctic.  

 

After a few short weeks of recovery and new preparations, we will be back at work in the Arctic.  I will return soon to complete our coastal survey, where we are looking for key shorebird staging areas along the Arctic Refuge coastline.  Trevor and Shiloh will be joining the effort this year, working alongside the crew from the USFWS to measure food abundance for the birds and conduct banding studies, and we will be reporting live from the Arctic again soon!