Welcome to the WWF Arctic Blog.

We are all happy to see fair weather in the morning. It is not unusual in coastal areas of Alaska to be stuck for days with fog, wind, and weather. We had heard reports of a brown bear and a cub along the road, but fail to see it on our way to the airstrip. Plenty of caribou and ptarmigan glance our way as we make our drive and there are patches of snow dotting the still brown tundra. Winter has not fully let go of this northern place.

Our last day for flight operations and we are all up early. Well, everyone but Jessica, our dedicated lab whiz, who was up until 3 AM working on the samples from the six bears we brought her late last night.

I stare out into a snowy and partially foggy morning as I work my way through breakfast and my morning coffee. Patchy squalls moving across the tundra and out on the ice – could go either direction today. The change in weather is expected, but we hoped for a couple of more blue sky weather days. The visibility is still fair, and the fixed wing will have no trouble flying, so we’ll push on out and see what we can accomplish today.

The scientists and staff at the Catlin Arctic Survey Ice Base in the high Arctic off Ellef Ringnes island in the Canadian High Arctic have reported an abnormal occurrence at the weekend: it rained.

As luck would have it, the weather is good, but we are required to take the second mandatory crew rest day for our pilot (two off during any 14 day window). He would much rather be flying, but the rules are very clear. With only two more flight days for the season ahead, we begin to make plans for our return to Anchorage on Saturday. For our pilot Howard and our lab technician Jessica, it has been almost seven straight weeks of fieldwork – and as much as they like the job, they are ready to be home.

The winds have dropped a bit when I check the weather station data and we still have mostly clear skies. We coordinate with our fixed wing pilot in Kotzebue and make plans to meet up somewhere out on the ice west of Point Hope. We try to get the airplane out well ahead of us as he has much more endurance than our helicopter. Ideally, the plane will find a bear or at least tracks and we can take it from there.

The Catlin Arctic Survey Explorer Team received the second and final resupply in the early hours of Friday morning. The chance to recoup supplies was extremely welcome following some heroic efforts on their part to manage a massive 50 nautical miles this week bringing them close to 880. They now sit at 87.46.56N 66.35.48E.

The weather holds and even improves as we head into the last week of the project. Clear skies and sun, though the winds are forecast to pick up during the day. We’ll launch in the late morning as we’ve noticed over the years that the bears seem less active earlier in the day. Tracks and bears are also both easier to spot in the low angle light of the evening hours.

As you might imagine, this sort of work entails some long days and a certain amount of stress on the crew. A key player in a successful field season, and actually the one who makes it all possible, is the pilot. To fly animal capture work for the US federal government, you have to be carded – which basically means meeting fairly high minimum flight hours, having prior low level flight experience, and passing a check flight. Our pilot in the Chukchi exceeds those requirements several times over and this is his third year on this project.

The morning breaks the same as the day before and, once again, it is hard to say which way the weather will go. We’ve had some fresh snow overnight and the temperature is hovering right at -16 C with a wind chill of about -23 C. Winter never completely leaves this far north region as they can see snow during every month of the year!