Climate Witness: Dan Cox, USA

Posted on 5 December 2008

Daniel J Cox’s annual trips to observe and photograph polar bears in the Canadian Arctic reveals that arctic ice is freezing for shorter periods each year; drastically shrinking the hunting season for polar bears.

My name is Daniel J. Cox. I’m 48 years old and live in Gallatin county outside the town of Bozeman, Montana. USA. I earn my living as a photojournalist documenting nature and wildlife and have been doing so for the past 28 years.

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It has been through my travels to the arctic and Churchill, Manitoba to photograph the annual polar bear congregation, that I’ve seen the most changes due to climate warming. I’ve been traveling to this area for nearly twenty consecutive years. As I write this, I’m winging my way to this same little town on the shores of Hudson Bay for another bear viewing season.

My observations of how the climate has changed is based mostly on my travels north. I first started visiting Churchill back in 1988. On my way to this exciting, subarctic community I always stop for the night in Winnipeg. On arrival in 1988, the weather was cold and blustery. There was already 1-2 feet of snow on the ground and I can recall it vividly due to my nightly adventures that took me from the hotel to find a place to eat. This was common for the first ten to twelve years. However, its no longer like this. Last year the sun was shining, there was not a trace of snow on the ground and the temperatures were well above freezing. It was a beautiful fall day.

My first realization of how things were beginning to change came sometime in the late 90’s but it became really obvious in 2003 or 2004. First was a change in the dates we were able to get out to Cape Churchill to see the polar bears. Our trips used to start November 3. This year, 2008, that same trip isn’t starting until November 17th. Our vehicle to get out and see the bears needs frozen coastline to travel over. It’s no longer freezing hard enough to get to Cape Churchill in early November.

In years past, at the end of the of our adventure to Cape Churchill, the bears have always been gone. The ice has frozen, the temperatures are typically well below zero F and the bay is mostly covered with ice. This season when we departed from Cape on November 26, 2008 the bears were still there, the bay was mostly still open and many individual mothers with cubs looked tired, hungry and more skinny than I can ever remember.

This change in temperature is more comfortable for me as I travel but it dramatically effects the polar bears I’m going to photograph. Each additional week they can’t get out onto the ice to hunt means less body fat and less healthy body conditions. Today, polar bears of the western hudson bay region are getting smaller and lighter as witnessed by the scientists studying them. If the trends continue it is predicted that this population of polar bears will die out and polar bears on Hudson Bay will be a thing of the past within the next 20-30 years.

My work as a photojournalist gives me the opportunity to document the arctic and the many changes it’s currently going through. It’s my goal to spend the next several years recording these changes and the effects the warming climate will have on the wildlife and people of the far north. All of this work will be under the umbrella of the conservation group Polar Bears International. You can find out more about this hard working and effective organization organization by visiting their web site at www.polarbearsinternational.org or visiting my web site at www.naturalexposures.com. I’m confident that my work through PBI will help encourage people around the world to begin making the changes needed to stop the human contribution of Co2 into the atmosphere.

All PBI scientists are adamant that there is still time to change the outcome of a warming planet. Hope is within reach by way individually doing our part to use less electricity, less carbon fuels, conserve more and recycle virtually everything. The green economy of a new world could provide many jobs and cleans the planet at the same time. I look at it this way. Most all of us insure almost everything. We insure our life, we insure our car, we insure our home, our health and lots of other worldly things. Why not take an insurance policy out on the mother earth? What do we have to loose by doing so? In the end we’ll have cleaner water, more breathable air, purer rain and a better quality of life. These things, along with our governments encouragement of new, green technologies are the key to a sustainable existence on this beautiful planet. Our time is short for making these changes if they are to be effective. The results of not doing so will be nothing short of catastrophic for the species once known as homo-sapiens.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Dr Henry Huntington, Independent Researcher, USA

Dan’s description of the changes around Churchill, both to weather and to polar bears, are consistent with scientific observations in the area and with what we would expect from a changing climate in the region. Southern Hudson Bay is in many respects a marginal habitat for polar bears, being at the southern end of their range and in a zone where sea ice is becoming less and less reliable and consistent in timing and thickness.

Some of the same stresses are becoming more common in northern Alaska. George Divoky, who has studied guillemots on Cooper Island near Barrow, Alaska, for a few decades, has observed more and more bears on land in the summer, to the point where they can no longer do their field work the way they used to. In Alaska, as in Hudson Bay, the ice has changed dramatically, reducing the bears’ preferred habitat and forcing them to adopt new behaviors and spend more time ashore.

What this means for the future of polar bears is unfortunately all too clear. They may be able to adapt in some ways, such as learning to forage and hunt on land in summer. A few polar bears have also interbred with brown bears. It’s too soon to tell whether that will become a trend, but if polar bears are on land more often, they will encounter more brown bears. What kinds of adaptations that will lead to remains to be seen.

I’m pleased that Dan remains optimistic about the future of polar bears. They are a symbol of the Arctic, of unspoiled nature, and they enrich our lives. As Dan says, there is still time, but only if we are willing to act soon.

References: “Ecological Applications”: the implications of climate change for Arctic marine mammals. . This collection of papers puts Dan’s observations in a broader context, though it is important to note that the climate projections used are now out of date. The real decline in sea ice is much faster, making the problem all the more urgent.

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

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