Polar bear sightings stir climate debate

Federal wildlife monitors spotted nine polar bears in one day swimming in the open ocean off Alaska's northwest coast -- prompting environmental groups to say the sightings are a strong signal that diminished sea ice brought on by global warming has put U.S. bears at risk of drowning or dying from fatigue.

The Associated Press reports:

Summer sea ice last year shrunk to a record low, about 1.65 million square miles in September, nearly 40% less than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000 and most climate modelers predict a continued downward spiral, possibly with an Arctic Ocean that's ice free during summer months by 2030 or sooner.

Conservation groups fear that one consequence of less ice will be more energy-sapping, long-distance swims by polar bears trying to reach feeding, mating or denning areas.

The nine bears were spotted on a flight by a marine contractor, Science Applications International Corp., hired for the Minerals Management Service in advance of future offshore oil development.

The MMS in February leased 2.76 million acres within an offshore area slightly smaller than Pennsylvania.

To catch up on polar bear news around the world and their role in the ongoing controversy over the Endangered Species Act, check out L.A. Unleashed's archives.

--Francisco Vara-Orta

Photo on top; bottom: World Wildlife Fund;Jonathan Hayward/Associated Press

Leatherback turtles reaching shores all over the place

Californians can proudly claim a champion in the Great Turtle Race, an international event we told you about earlier this month that tracked the journey of 11 radio-tagged leatherbacks in the Pacific Ocean toward the International Date Line.

The first to reach the finish line was a turtle named Saphira II, sponsored by the Bullis Charter School of Los Altos, Calif. Turtle enthusiasts can relive the adventure by visiting the race's website and watching an interactive recreation using a rainbow of colors to differentiate the turtles.

But Saphira II and her competitors aren't the only leatherbacks making strides on the world's shores. The New York Times is also reporting that the creatures showed up for the first time in decades on Texas tan-tinged beaches near Corpus Christi:

For the first time since the 1930s, federal biologists confirmed that a leatherback sea turtle has nested on a Texas beach, at the Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi.

Last Friday, staff conducting a beach patrol found turtle tracks and a few exposed eggs. They were thought at first to be those of a green turtle. But the eggs and the width of the tracks, more than 6 feet across, were later determined by a park biologist, Cynthia Rubio, to be from a leatherback. The giant turtles, endangered around the world, have until now only been known to nest in four spots in the United States –- with about three dozen females a year laying eggs on beaches along the east coast of Florida and slightly larger nesting populations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There is evidence of nesting in North Carolina as well.

-- Francisco Vara-Orta

Photo: Scott Benson/U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service

Iceland authorities fatally shoot bear

Police in Iceland say they fatally shot the first polar bear seen in the country in 20 years after the animal threatened people, the Associated Press reports.

Authorities say police in northern Iceland shot the bear Tuesday after determining that drugs that could be used to sedate the animal were unavailable and that a gun to fire them was elsewhere in the country.

It's not known how the polar bear reached Iceland; it may have come on an iceberg or swam. Scientists blame global warming for the disappearance of sea ice — vital for the bear's survival.

-- Francisco Vara-Orta

Taking a trip with the turtles

Watching turtles race across the ocean doesn't sound like the most dynamic contest, but a group of environmentalists and scientists begs to differ -- creating ahighly interactive site chronicling an international Pacific Ocean jaunt for leatherback turtles.

The 11 turtles racing have been equipped with satellite tags and are headed toward the International Dateline (or the middle of the Pacific Ocean) from nesting beaches in Indonesia and feeding areas along the U.S. West Coast. The race, which begins today and runs until June 16, covers more than 3,000 miles.

The leatherback is a sea turtle that's been around for 100 million years -- they have outlived the dinosaurs but now are dangerously close to extinction, said Mike Milne, Leatherback Campaign Coordinator for the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, one of the race's sponsors.

Numbers in the Pacific Ocean have decreased from about 115,000 two decades ago to fewer than 5,000 today. The Web site chronicling the race aims to raise funds for protecting leatherback turtle-nesting areas in Indonesia, organizers said.

"The decline of leatherbacks in the Pacific is an international problem that calls for an international solution, so our Great Turtle Race efforts to raise the international profile of this species are an important step," Milne said.

Dubbed the Great Turtle Race II, organizers include The Leatherback Trust, NOAA, Global Cause, Tagging of Pacific  Pelagics, Sea Turtle Restoration Project, and Drexel University. Eleven institutions and sponsors from America, China and Indonesia are sponsoring the turtles.

As the leatherbacks surface to breath every several minutes, satellite tags transmit data such as location and water temperature to satellites in space, which then transmit the data back down to computer servers in the U.S. 

"This data is combined with remotely sensed information about sea surface temperature, sea surface height, and more to build a comprehensive understanding of leatherbacks’ epic, trans-Pacific  migrations," Milne said. "Scientists and managers will be able to use this information on oceanography, animal behaviors and human pressures to develop innovative ways to conserve leatherbacks and other sea turtles."

-- Francisco Vara-Orta

Photo: Scott Benson/U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service

Conservation group wants Pacific walruses protected

A conservation group announced this week it will sue to force federal action on a petition to list the Pacific walrus as a threatened species because of global warming and offshore petroleum development, Dan Joling of the Associated Press reports:

The deadline was May 8 for an initial 90-day review of the petition by the U.S. Department of the Interior, according to Center for Biological Diversity attorney Brendan Cummings. The group filed the petition back in February.

Shaye Wolf, a biologist and lead author of the petition, said Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than the best predictions of climate models.

"As the sea ice recedes, so does the future of the Pacific walrus," she said.

The Center for Biological Diversity was one of three conservation groups that successfully petitioned to have polar bears listed as threatened because of sea ice loss caused by global warming, a decision announced this month by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. That listing also followed court action to force deadline decisions, though.

Listing a species as "threatened" means it is likely to become endangered, government officials said. "Endangered" is more dire and means a species is in danger of extinction throughout all or much of its range.

-- Francisco Vara-Orta

Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / Associated Press

Birds weather global warming

Times staff writer Alan Zarembo reports that researchers have found that at least one bird population in England has managed to adapt to global warming.

The members of the great tit species have timed their breeding season over the last five decades so that their chicks hatch when their main food source, the winter moth caterpillar, is most abundant, the researchers reported Friday in the journal Science.

"It's kind of good news to know that some birds can adjust," said Anne Charmantier, an evolutionary biologist at France's National Center for Scientific Research and a coauthor of the study.

The birds have coped with a 4-degree rise in spring temperatures over the last 47 years by laying their eggs an average of 14 days earlier.

-- Alice Short

Threatening marine life, oxygen-poor ocean zones grow

Oxygen-starved waters are expanding in the Pacific and Atlantic as ocean temperatures increase with global warming, threatening fisheries and other marine life, according to a study published today. Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss reports:

Most of these zones remain hundreds of feet below the surface, but they are beginning to spill onto the relatively shallow continental shelf off the coast of California and are nearing the surface off Peru, driving away fish from commercially important fishing grounds, researchers have found.

The low-oxygen, or hypoxic, zones may also be connected to the Pacific Coast invasion of the Humboldt, or jumbo, squid. These voracious predators, which can grow 6 feet long, appear to be taking advantage of their tolerance for oxygen-poor waters to escape predators and devour local fish, another team of scientists theorizes.

Francisco Chavez, a study co-author and senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, said that California can look to Peru for potential problems ahead. Peruvian authorities have struggled for a decade over a commercial fish called hake that is being squeezed between overfishing and oxygen-starved waters.

Humboldt squid apparently have been eating hake off California, just as they do off Peru, Field said. Some scientists believe the squid have expanded their range due to over-exploiting of sharks and other predators.

Humboldt squid can weigh 100 pounds. That's one being hoisted by fisherman Steve Consulo.

-- Francisco Vara-Orta

Photo: Erhardt Krause/Sacramento Bee