Last modified: Sunday, October 14, 2007 11:21 PM MDT UW professor studies threatened sea ducks in Bering Sea By D. Sharon Fain sfain@wyomingnews.com Last modified: Sunday, October 14, 2007 11:21 PM MDT UW professor studies threatened sea ducks in Bering Sea By D. Sharon Fain sfain@wyomingnews.com
CHEYENNE - A team of researchers from land-locked Wyoming is working to discover why spectacled eiders and other sea ducks are threatened with extinction. Since 1999, University of Wyoming zoology professor James Lovvorn and a group of UW graduate students have taken part in five fact-finding cruises in the northern Bering Sea. The research area is located between Russia and the U.S. Alaskan coastline. In 1993, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the spectacled eider as threatened. Lovvorn has studied diving ducks since 1980, writing computer models relating the species to their prey base. In 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked Lovvorn to become involved in the spectacled eider research. Experts are unsure of the reason behind the decrease of sea ducks like the spectacled eider. Lovvorn said there are about six species of sea ducks in the western arctic and in Alaska, and populations are down from 50 percent to 90 percent. Two of those birds are listed under the Endangered Species Act, both the spectacled eider and Steller's eider. Lovvorn said he believes there could be a number of reasons behind the decline. "Quite frankly, I think it is a combination of climate change, because the impact seems to be so widespread over such a large area affecting so many species that nest in different areas," Lovvorn said. "But in some cases, there are even influences we really don't know why most of these birds have declined." Lovvorn said he believes global warming has changed breeding grounds and the number of ponds where sea ducks nest. He said the effects on wintering areas are less clear, but for the spectacled eider, there have been severe declines in food availability in their wintering area that are probably climate-related. The researchers are examining every possibility, including the impact of climate warming on the bottom community of predators that compete with eiders for the same food source. According to Lovvorn, the northern Bering Sea is one of the world's richest feeding grounds for whales, walruses and sea birds. And it is warming to the point where animals are being forced to adapt. "One big thing they will need to adapt to is the change in ice cover. Walruses cannot live in the open ocean; they must haul out onto ice to rest. My research finds the same applies to spectacled eider - having ice is important to them, getting out of the water. The loss of ice is believed to have important effects on the supply of food to the bottom communities. It's believed that changes in ice cover will have huge effects," he said. Since returning from their latest expedition aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, a five-week journey that spanned May and June, the UW researchers have begun sorting through freezers full of crabs, fish, sea stars, snails and plankton to form the basis of their computer simulation. Lovvorn and his team hope to construct food web networks and, eventually, a computer model that will help identify the location and extent of viable habitat for spectacled eiders. Some may wonder how researchers in Wyoming, which has no coastline, became part of ocean research. Lovvorn laughed and said, "Actually, if you work in the Arctic, it doesn't mean you can't get to the coast faster than some in Fairbanks when you are going up for expeditions." UW graduate student Jason Kolts has taken part in two cruises to the Bering Strait with Lovvorn to focus on snow crab research. "It was amazing to go from working in Wyoming to then working on an icebreaker," he said. Kolts said the best part of the research cruise is seeing creatures and parts of the Earth that very few people have the opportunity to see. The expeditions are expensive and exhausting. Lovvorn said the research ships like the Healy cost around $40,000 per day to operate and can be packed with as many as 40 different researchers collecting various data. "We worked 12-hour shifts, four people on each shift, 24 hours a day for five straight weeks. Because the ship is so expensive to run, we try not to waste more than 15 minutes. Everyone is working, and by the time it's over, you are pretty exhausted, but it's the only way to learn about these remote areas on the ice," Lovvorn said. Lovvorn will return to the Bering Sea in March to study both walruses and the spectacled eider.