Dilemma of state dependent on oil industry
AS dusk fell, a mother black bear climbed on to a broken beaver dam a short amble from a glacial lake.
We watched as she sized up the sockeye salmon leaping their way up a stream to spawn. Then she grabbed one in her powerful jaws.
She looked around – salmon still flapping – sniffed the air and bustled off into the shadows of a spruce to her two cubs. Together they devoured the protein-rich fish, vital for their fat reserves in Alaska’s winter,
It is a scene repeated every year for millennia. But this year it is much less likely to be happening in Alaska, once dubbed “America’s Icebox”, due to a freakish hot summer. With Alaska warming almost three times faster than the rest of America, it is likely to become all too common as climate change takes hold.
The drought has made spawning streams shallower and, a ranger explained, fewer salmon are getting up them.
At the Tongass National Forest reserve by the Mendenhall Glacier there is a sign recording how many salmon have been counted each week this spawning summer compared to the five-year average. In early August, there were 60 compared to the average of 294, 115 the next week compared to 452.
Rainforest
There are still lots of sockeye – brick red with green heads and tails – but they feed so many creatures that huge numbers are vital to Alaska’s web of life.
The salmon’s fate is either to spawn in the streams and die or be caught by bears, while eagles, ravens and wolves finish the left-overs.
Dr Brian Brettschneider, 48, climate researcher at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said: “All-time records are usually broken by slivers of a degree but in July Alaska broke the all-time warmest month by a wide margin.”
And in August temperatures were unusually high again, with day after day of sunshine in Juneau, the capital, which is better known for the heavy rain which sustains its vast rainforest.
Dr Brettschneider said it seems to be part of trend linked to climate change. “In Alaska 2016 was by a wide margin the warmest year, 2018 was the second warmest and 2019 is certain to be in the top five in records going back to 1900.” This year’s unusual heatwave – Anchorage recorded 90F for the first time ever on July 4 – has also led to large die-offs of salmon in Alaskan streams. Scientists say the fish are thought to have suffocated in water so warm and shallow that it did not contain enough oxygen.
Meanwhile, the scrambling of the seasons is affecting wildlife from migrating birds to black bears.
One study showed black bears are hibernating for shorter periods due to warmer winters.And on the ALASKA is sowing the seeds of its own meltdown thanks to its huge dependence on the oil industry.
America’s northernmost state has huge reserves of oil and gas and has a vested interest in exploiting them.
The petroleum industry supports one in three of all jobs there, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Association.
The state gets 90 per cent of its revenue from the industry, collecting £127billion from it since 1959.
And every Alaskan gets an annual dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund which was set up in 1976 and is based on a Alaskan island of Kodiak grizzly bears even gave up eating salmon in 2014 because their other favourite food, elderberries, ripened early at the peak of the salmon run.
This trend may be repeated thanks to climate change.
John Morton, of Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, which is south of Anchorage, said the climate is warming “rapidly”. There is 60 per cent less water available compared to 1968, while the treeline is rising one metre every year. Over the portion of the state’s oil revenues. Since it started paying out in 1982, the average family of four has received at least £107,000.
This means the fight against climate change in Alaska is politically charged.
Republican governor Mike Dunleavy, on his first day in office last December, said he doubted Alaska’s ability to influence climate change and wanted to concentrate on economic improvements.
In February he took the controversial step of axing Alaska’s climate change strategy commission. Meanwhile President Donald past 50 years the glaciers have lost more than 60ft in height, 11 per cent of their surface area and thinned by 55 per cent. Morton said 33 species of migrating birds are arriving earlier in spring and 38 species leaving later in autumn.
Those most likely to move north earlier are short-distance migrants, according to Dr Frank La Sorte of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In response to a heatwave in March 2014, these included American golden plover, American robin, Trump, who once claimed that the idea of global warming “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive”, has been busy scrapping climate change regulations.
But within communities in Alaska and across America there are great efforts to tame climate change.
Alaska’s capital Juneau and its largest city Anchorage have adopted climate action plans while its second largest city Fairbanks is considering a similar scheme.
But the world needs oil and gas and the Alaskan state needs its revenues, so the battle will be hard fought. Canada goose, pine siskin and yellow-throated warbler. Dr La Sorte said: “Short-distance migrants can detect changes in temperature but long-distance migrants wintering in Central and South America can’t, which may place them at a distinct disadvantage.”
Other studies show caribou migration is being affected by summer forest fires that burn their lichen winter food while the snow melt is coming too early for rabbits, unable to change their camouflage coats from winter white to brown.
Bob Janes, founder of Juneaubased whale-watching specialists Gastineau Guiding, said: “In 1964 we would get about 2m (6.5ft) of snow right through winter. Now it seldom builds up to more than 2ft.
“Our reservoirs and streams are not getting as full.”
Fisherman Bob added: “I used to catch 50-60lb king salmon. Now they’re about 30-40lb. So much wildlife is based on fish in the food chain.”
Marine mammal specialist Dr Suzie Teerlink, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, said it is likely that whales are already being affected by climate change. “There is what is known as ‘The Blob’, a