Quoted in ScienceNOW: Harp seals and ice

by
in Arctic, harp seals, Ice
on December 6, 2011

I did an interview a couple of weeks ago for a journalist that was covering a new paper on changing sea ice in the Northwest Atlantic and it’s potential effects on harp seals. The ScienceNOW piece, written by student journalist Erin Loury was released on 30 November 2011. The story can be found here: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/11/baby-seals-need-the-nicest-ice.html

It was really great to get to talk to Erin about the paper, and in particular to provide some context for changing ice conditions across the Northwest Atlantic in relation to harp seal breeding regions. Perhaps most importantly, it is really great to see that the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is starting to take climate change seriously when it comes to ice seals in Canada. This is the first paper that that DFO has published specifically on this issue, and it is a welcome deviation from the standard “seals eat fish” studies that dominate their work. Erin contacted me about this paper as our research group here at Duke has been studying sea ice change in harp seal breeding regions since 2003 or so. We published the first assessment of sea ice cover and climate variability in breeding regions of harp seals in Canada in 2005, and followed this up with a basin-scale assessment in 2010. We’ve got more on the way for this topic – so stay tuned!

This latest paper – entitled “Drifting away: implications of changes in ice conditions for a pack-ice-breeding phocid, the harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus)” was published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology. It’s findings confirm previous studies that illustrate worsening ice conditions in eastern Canada and provides us with a much needed piece of the dynamic puzzle of sea ice and seals in Canada – it sheds light on the types of ice that harp seals have preferred to pup on in the past. This information can be very useful for future studies of how changes in sea ice quality and quantity in this region are affecting harp seal neonatal survival. Congratulations to Mike Hammil and his coauthors on getting this paper out!

You can find this paper on the CJZ website here: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/z11-081

[photo size=’big’]http://superpod.ml.duke.edu/johnston/files/2011/12/driftingawayiceconditions.jpg[/photo]