ARCTIC: Beluga whales protection & more – 23rd July 2024

Bures from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 23rd of July twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

It’s the story heard around the world this week, the global internet outage that began on Friday the 19th when cyber security firm CrowdStrike issued a faulty update to Microsoft devices worldwide. The impacts reached as far as the Arctic Circle, with Alaskans reporting on the 19th that they were unable to call emergency services. In Iceland, Landsbanki, the country’s largest bank, reported service disruptions, and even in remote Greenland, the small town of Kujalleq reported on the 19th that its hospital systems were down as a result of the outage. This situation shows that even in the far north of the world, IT problems are still a part of daily life.

The other event to affect the whole Arctic this week is a record-breaking heatwave. In Finland, on Monday the 15th, the Finnish Meteorological Institute revealed that Finland’s northernmost municipality recorded its highest-ever temperature, reaching almost twenty-seven degrees Celsius, or eighty degrees Fahrenheit. On Tuesday the 16th, the government of Canada’s North Western Territories had to issue a heat warning to its residents because of a heatwave reaching thirty-five degrees Celsius, or ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit.

In the far northern islands of Svalbard, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute announced on Friday the 19th that Svalbard recorded its warmest June on record with the average June temperature reaching above six degrees Celcius, or over forty degrees Fahrenheit. This may seem cold, but it is almost double the normal average summer temperature in Svalbard. These warming events are becoming common and record-breaking heat waves may be the new normal for life in the Arctic.

Stopping the Arctic from warming is a serious challenge. The huge areas of ice in the Arctic used to do a great job at keeping the world cool, but that is changing. New research published on Wednesday the 17th by the University of Michigan reveals that Arctic ice has lost around a quarter of its cooling power since nineteen eighty. As ice has gotten thinner or disappeared entirely, it is losing the ability to reflect sunlight away from Earth. Instead, the Arctic is now absorbing about a quarter more heat from the sun than in the past. Combating climate change usually focuses on greenhouse gas emissions, but keeping the Arctic reflecting sunlight may be just as important.

One way to restore the Arctic is to create protected areas free from human impact. In the US, President Biden has implemented many environmental protections across Alaska in the last year. On Monday the 15th, his government revealed plans to potentially protect even more of Alaska. The Bureau of Land Management announced a public consultation on increasing the size of protected areas in western Alaska. If the public supports this, the US government will expand the already largest tract of undisturbed land in the US, preventing any human disturbance on the land.

Speaking of protection in Alaska, beluga whales had a very good week. On Monday the 15th, scientists with the US Fisheries Institute announced the first-ever discovery of a winter feeding habitat for the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales. This finding can now be used to create a protected zone around the feeding ground, minimizing human disturbance. Then, on Tuesday the 16th, Sharon Gleason, a US federal judge, suspended the only active oil and gas lease in the Cook Inlet. Her ruling stated that the previous decision to allow exploration didn't sufficiently account for protecting beluga whales. The lease is now suspended until a new environmental assessment addresses the identified issues.

Over the border in Canada, protection for polar bears might be getting easier. On Monday the 15th, a team led by the University of York published a research paper that revealed new tracking devices that remain on polar bears for a long time. This innovation addresses a significant gap in our knowledge of polar bear behavior, as GPS collars will fall off male polar bears due to their small heads, meaning that, in the past, only females could be tracked. There has been limited data on male polar bears' movements, making it challenging to design effective protected areas. This new technology has already tracked almost sixty bears in Canada, which marks a new wave of discovery for the Arctic's largest inhabitant.

Less positive Canadian news comes from the recent mine collapse in the Yukon. Two weeks after the Eagle Gold mine collapse, which leached cyanide into the water supply, hopes for a swift restoration of operations are fading. On Tuesday the 16th, Mining Watch Canada expressed concern that the mine might soon go bankrupt since the collapse destroyed its gold supply. The cleanup is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. With Eagle Gold's income source gone, Mining Watch Canada believes the mine may never reopen. If this happens, the cleanup costs will likely fall on local and federal governments, ultimately burdening taxpayers.

Pollution is causing problems in Russia too. Rosprirodnadzor, the Russian environmental watchdog, reported on Monday the 15th that a large spill has been detected in Murmansk, Russia’s Arctic capital. The report states that the oil spill was first detected on July 1st but not made public until the 15th. The culprit has not been located yet and cleanup operations are still ongoing. The fjord in which the spill occurred leads directly into the Barents Sea, and as Rosprirodnadzor reported the toxicity of the affected water is 400 times above safe limits, it is important the spill is cleaned before it reaches the fish and fishing communities in the Barents Sea.

Elsewhere in Russia, a huge environmental experiment is growing. On Thursday the 18th, Ilken, a Russian news agency, reported a group of camels had been brought to the Pleistocene Park in the Nizhnekolymsky District on Russia’s north coast. Pleistocene Park is a nature reserve and an ambitious attempt to re-create the subarctic grassland ecosystem that flourished in the area during the last ice age. The scientists behind the project are reintroducing plant and animal species that once lived in the region during the Pleistocene period. They are studying the impact on the land in hopes of creating a new vibrant ecosystem far into Russia’s Arctic.

To learn more about this unique project, check out their website with the link in the show notes.

What isn’t growing, however, is hunting in Iceland. On Monday the 15th, the reindeer hunting season began, but the Environment Agency has set the lowest hunting quota since two thousand and four. After peaking at almost 1,500 in twenty nineteen, the quota has been declining annually, with only 800 reindeer permitted to be hunted in twenty twenty-four. Iceland's reindeer population has been in serious decline in recent years, which calls for fewer animals being hunted until the population recovers.

To make matters worse, on Tuesday the 16th, the Icelandic Directorate of Fisheries suddenly announced all coastal fishermen in Iceland were to immediately cease fishing for cod. The annual quota was set at 12,000 tonnes of cod, yet according to information from the Norwegian Fisheries Agency, over one hundred tonnes of this quota remains. Even so, the Icelandic government canceled all fishing licenses without warning. There has not yet been an official explanation from the government, as Iceland’s fishing season comes to a premature end.

Finally, let’s head over to Greenland where, on Monday the 22nd, Paul Watson, the founder of the controversial protest group Sea Shepherd, was arrested by Greenlandic police. In a statement, the Greenland police said Watson was arrested in Greenlandic waters following an international arrest warrant issued by Japan for harassing Japanese whaling vessels. Watson will appear before a local court in Nuuk, where a decision will be made on his extradition to Japan or his retention in Greenland. Watson’s organization released a statement after his arrest, noting he was en route to intercept a Japanese whaling vessel and that the arrest was surprising, as they had been informed the international warrant had been withdrawn. Wanna know more? Check out the Japan Update with the link in the show notes!

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Mana!