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   Subject: List of threatened Arctic animals is growing   
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   List of threatened Arctic animals is growing   
      
      
   September 12, 2009   
      
      
   Polar bears may be the most iconic Arctic creature threatened by   
   climate change, but they've got plenty of company.   
      
   Hooded and ringed seals, Arctic foxes, ivory gulls, narwhals and   
   Pacific walruses are also faring poorly as temperatures climb, say   
   leading northern researchers, who report that climate change has   
   "severely perturbed" Arctic ecosystems.   
      
   Just this week, thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska's   
   northwest coast having abandoned the retreating ice, the latest in a   
   growing list of peculiar events unfolding in the North.   
      
   Rapid and widespread changes have occurred across Arctic terrestrial,   
   freshwater and marine systems, the scientists say in a report--to be   
   published in the journal Science--that takes stock of the ecological   
   consequences of recent climate change.   
      
   Southern creatures such as the red fox are expanding northward, they   
   say, while many animals that depend on the ice are in trouble and some   
   could be headed for extinction.   
      
   Early spring rains in the Canadian Arctic has seen ringed seals'   
   birthing dens collapse, "leaving newborn pups exposed on bare ice," the   
   international team reports. Polar bear cubs have been suffering a   
   similar fate, it says, noting that denning in the Alaskan Beaufort is   
   down 50 per cent, while the number of bears in Hudson Bay is down 22   
   per cent.   
      
   The Pacific walrus, which uses ice as a feeding and breeding platform,   
   has been hit so hard that the U. S. government has been asked to list   
   it as a threatened or endangered species. Thousands of walruses   
   abandoned retreating ice floes--and in some cases their pups -- during   
   2007's remarkable melt, and headed for rocky shores in Alaska. The same   
   phenomenon appears to be unfolding again this fall.   
      
   "It seems no matter where you look--on the ground, in the air, or in   
   the water -- we're seeing signs of rapid change," says lead author Eric   
   Post, a biologist at Penn State University. He's heading a study of the   
   biological responses to climate change for International Polar Year,   
   currently wrapping up.   
      
   Red foxes are also moving north, displacing Arctic foxes. "They're   
   chasing them out," says co-author David Hik, a biologist at the   
   University of Alberta and executive director of the Canadian   
   International Polar Year Secretariat.   
      
   Hik says the impacts of the changing ecological dynamics can be far-   
   reaching, and in many cases are still poorly understood.   
      
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