The Arctic’s warming climate may prompt seabirds to seek out different feeding areas.

Transcript:

In the Canadian Arctic, vast expanses of tundra and sea ice are home to seabirds like common and king eiders.

But as the climate warms and sea ice melts, some birds could struggle to find food in their usual places, and more shipping in the Arctic increases the risk of oil spills.

So monitoring seabird colonies is critical. But Julia Baak of the Canadian Wildlife Service says remote, harsh conditions make that difficult.

Baak: “A lot of these colonies are quite far away – sometimes, for example, a six-hour boat ride.”

So some areas have not been surveyed in decades. And because the Arctic is changing so fast, a lot of existing data is outdated.

For example, Baak recently conducted a survey of common eiders.

Baak: “And we went at a time that we expected the birds would be present because of the previous data from the 1980s and 1990s. But … when we got there, the sea ice was already broken up. And so the birds, normally concentrated in a crack in the sea ice, feeding, could have been anywhere.”

So Baak and her colleagues are compiling existing data so researchers know which areas and species have been studied and when.

She hopes this helps them prioritize which areas to study in the future and guides conservation as the climate changes.

Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media