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Mammals of the Chukchi
Birds of the Chukchi
Balance in the Arctic: Audubon’s Position
What You Can Do
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The Chukchi Sea, off the coast of northwest Alaska, is one of the most productive ocean ecosystems in the world. Its vast, shallow sea floor and seasonal ice cover provide nutrients and pristine habitat for a multitude of organisms, ranging from phytoplankton at the base of the food chain to the top predator mammal, the polar bear.

But changes to the Chukchi are coming. This past February the US Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) held the first of several planned oil and gas lease sales on nearly 30 million acres of the Chukchi—an area about the size of Pennsylvania. After the bidding ended, nearly 10 percent of the offered acreage was sold for a near-record $2.6 billion.

Audubon, in coalition with several environmental and Alaska Native groups, filed suit in January to challenge this lease sale, and a federal district court hearing is pending. The lawsuit charges that the MMS violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by not adequately addressing impacts on the natural and human environment of the Chukchi. In particular, the environmental documents insufficiently presented the cumulative impacts of oil leasing, exploration, and development, and the effects of climate change on wildlife and other values. Additionally, the resources and environmental aspects of the region are not well known or understood, and the environmental impact statements and analyses were based on very limited and out-dated research and information.

Because of the suit, the February Chukchi leases could be subject to later court rulings, and future injunctions could be sought to prevent exploratory or development drilling or additional lease sales. Click here to read Audubon’s press release on the lawsuit.

Mammals of the Chukchi

The Chukchi Sea is distinctly different from lower latitude seas and makes direct and important contributions to global ocean and climate systems. Ice in particular is a critical feature of the Chukchi. The ice edge produces a rich profusion of phytoplankton, which is the base of the food chain for all marine and coastal Arctic wildlife and people, especially with a lack of benthic predation by warmer water fish, such as salmon and pollock. The Chukchi’s shallow and highly productive sea floor allows bottom-dwelling prey (crustacea, mollusks, etc.) to flourish, creating a buffet for wildlife specialized to feed off the ocean floor, such as walrus, seals, gray whales, and deep-diving sea birds. Many of these species also rely on ice edges for resting, denning, and/or calving.

Perhaps most famously, Chukchi Sea is home to roughly half of America’s polar bears, approximately 2,000 animals, or one-tenth of the world’s population. Polar bears are integrally tied to sea ice for hunting, resting, breeding, and denning. Yet as the summer sea ice has retreated dramatically over the past 15 years, especially off the coast of Alaska, polar bears are increasingly denning on coastal lands instead. The melting sea ice has also reduced the area available to polar bears for hunting seals, the bear’s chief prey species, and is forcing bears to swim farther in search of food and denning sites. A September 2007 study from the US Geological Survey forecasts a loss of two-thirds of the world’s polar bears—and all of Alaska’s polar bears—by 2050. Other studies have documented polar bear drownings, smaller body size, lower cub survival rates, and cannibalism due to sea ice retreating.

The most common prey species of the polar bear is the ringed seal, one of the so-called “ice seals” of the Chukchi. Other ice seals include ribbon, bearded, and spotted seals. True to their nickname, these seals are ice dependent, relying on ice edges to hunt and give birth to and nurse pups.

In addition to seals, most of the Pacific walrus population utilizes the Chukchi Sea during the summer months. Unlike seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely and rely on ice floes extensively for resting and as platforms from which to feed on mollusks and other benthic invertebrates. During the summer of 2007, as the ice retreated beyond the continental shelf, unprecedented numbers of walruses “hauled out” on shore in Alaska and in Russia, and thousands of walruses were killed in stampedes as the animals crowded onto the shoreline in extraordinary numbers. Walruses have also suffered from population declines as feeding and nursing their young has grown increasingly difficult.

The Chukchi is also important for whales. Endangered gray, fin, and humpback whales feed in the Chukchi’s shallows, and up to 3,500 beluga whales use Kasegaluk Lagoon near Point Lay for feeding, calving, and molting. In addition, most of the western Arctic Ocean’s endangered bowhead whales, the most important subsistence and cultural resource of many Alaskan North Slope residents, migrate along the Chukchi coast.

Birds of the Chukchi

The bays, inlets, and river outlets lining the Chukchi also provide breeding, feeding, and staging areas for millions of migrating shorebirds, seabirds, and waterfowl. At least 15 species on Audubon’s Alaska WatchList use the Chukchi, including Steller’s Eiders, which are listed as threatened under the ESA, and Yellow-billed Loons, which are under consideration for ESA listing. Yellow-billed Loons are among the species affected by the recent oil spill off the coast of South Korea.

There are small populations of Kittlitz’s Murrelets in the Chukchi Sea. Nests have been found inland in the DeLong Mountains and Lisburne Hills, and murrelets have been found up to 40-50 miles offshore, primarily in the Cape Lisburne area north of Point Hope. Kittlitz's Murrelets have undergone dramatic reductions in population in recent years and are currently under study by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for potential ESA listing.

Spectacled Eider © Laura L. Whitehouse, USFWS

Several globally and continentally significant Important Bird Areas (IBAs) are within the Chukchi, including 18 IBAs on the US side of the Chukchi Sea and six more on the Russian side. Included among these are marine feeding areas for Northern Fulmars and Short-tailed Shearwaters and nesting and feeding areas for huge colonies of Common Murres and Thick-billed Murres.

Ledyard Bay, an IBA just south of the new oil and gas leases, is a Critical Habitat Area for ESA-listed Spectacled Eiders. In fact, most of the female Spectacled Eiders that breed on the Arctic Coastal Plain molt in Ledyard Bay. About 33,000 Spectacled Eiders and 500,000 King Eiders feed on mollusks and other bottom food in the shallow waters of the Bay. From April into November, nearly all of the breeding King Eiders from the US and Canada, plus many Russian breeding King Eiders, migrate through, stage, and forage in the eastern Chukchi. King Eiders utilize the shallow open polynas of the Chukchi to dive for mollusks and other invertebrates in spring and early summer, prior to dispersing to breeding grounds in Canada and Russia and on Alaska’s North Slope.

Balance in the Arctic: Audubon’s Position

Although Audubon has not opposed oil and gas leasing and development in many areas of the Arctic, there are several places where natural values are so important, and/or where so little is known of the dynamic environment, that further development should not be allowed. The Chukchi Sea is one of those special places.

Global climate change is a growing threat, and its effects in the Arctic are obvious and dramatic. In 2007 the summer polar ice pack lost more than 1.5 million square miles, 20 percent more than had ever been previously recorded—more than the states of Alaska, Texas, and California combined. Some scientists predict that the permanent Arctic Ocean sea ice may be gone by 2040.

With the disappearance of sea ice habitat, there has been a flurry of petitions and proposals to protect several of the Arctic’s at-risk, ice-dependent marine mammals under the ESA. Given indications of population decline and stress, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed listing the polar bear as threatened, but the agency did not issue its final determination in early January as mandated. Thus the Chukchi lease sale took place without the scrutiny it would have received had the polar bear been listed. Meanwhile, the National Marine Fisheries Service is considering listing ringed, bearded, spotted, and ribbon seals, and petitions have been filed to list the Pacific walrus.

Relatively little is known about the Chukchi Sea ecosystem and the unique wildlife that depends on it. The government’s environmental impact statements for the lease sale are largely based on outdated, incomplete, and inadequate research and analysis. Agency scientists overwhelming believe that more research is needed for monitoring and mitigating impacts. With the acknowledged lack of baseline information, monitoring impacts would be nearly impossible, and management of those impacts would be rendered meaningless.

The chances of an oil spill in these fragile waters are very real, and the technology for oil cleanup in remote, ice-choked waters does not exist. The MMS admits that there is currently no way to adequately respond to oil spills in solid and broken ice conditions and that oil development, particularly a large spill, could cause long-lasting and devastating sociocultural impacts, including cultural impacts, contamination of food and water, erosion of community integrity and identity, and substantial impairment to subsistence due to animal loss or changes in migration routes and behavior. Mitigation measures to prevent adverse impacts on the Arctic Ocean environment and wildlife have not been adequately or realistically described.

Subsistence Harvest of Bowhead Whale © USFWS

Audubon’s position is that leasing in the Chukchi Sea should not be permitted until:

• the needed research has been conducted,
• potential impacts and mitigation measures have been adequately addressed,
• effective oil spill clean-up technologies have been demonstrated and proven,
• decisions have been made to list the polar bear and other petitioned species, and
• critical habitat has been designated for all ESA species.

In addition to the lawsuit against further Chukchi development, Audubon Alaska is compiling and mapping data on the ecological resources of the Arctic Ocean and is also identifying research needs. Finally, we are working with our conservation and Alaska Native partners to press Congress to enact “time outs” for Arctic Ocean oil and gas development until more is known about the environment and the impacts of development and climate change.

What You Can Do

1. Write to your Senators. You can help protect the Chukchi Sea by urging your Senators to co-sponsor S. 2568, a bill that would prohibit oil and gas activities in the Chukchi Sea and the adjacent Beaufort Sea until additional research is conducted, potential impacts are better understood, and technologies are developed and proven to clean oil spills in ice-laden waters. Current cosponsors include Sen. Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Biden (D-DE), Sen. Sanders (I-VT), and Sen. Cantwell (D-WA).

Suggested text: “I am writing to ask you to cosponsor S. 2568, which would prohibit oil and gas activities in Alaska's Beaufort and Chukchi Seas until more research is conducted and potential impacts are better understood. We barely know this changing seascape, and this is not the time to move forward with oil and gas development. Furthermore, the risks are too high for a devastating oil spill. The Minerals Management Service's own environmental impact statements found at least a 35% chance that drilling in the Chukchi would result in a major spill of more than 1,000 barrels of oil. The Chukchi is important habitat for endangered whales, millions of shorebirds, seabirds, and waterfowl, and half of America’s polar bears. It is simply not worth the risk.”

Click here to find contact information for your Senators.

2. Join the Audubon Action Alert Network to receive periodic email alerts on urgent Arctic, Alaska, and national conservation issues as they arise. Click here to sign up or click here for more information.

3. Donate online now to Audubon Alaska to support our science and policy work in the Arctic.

Read More

“Alaska’s Important Bird Areas and Chukchi Sea Oil” – a blog article from the editors of Birder’s World magazine