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Blizzard cuts off North Slope villageSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS The Inupiat village of Kaktovik on Alaska’s North Slope was under siege last week when a blizzard knocked out power, leaving the community of 300 in the dark and the cold. During the crisis, food and water were rationed and one case of carbon monoxide poisoning was reported. Electric linemen, tools and supplies, including portable lights were finally airdropped in. Later, a cargo plane was able to bring more electricians, plumbers and supplies to start repairing the damage.
Norway completes polar bear censusSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS About 3,000 polar bears live around the Arctic Barents Sea off northern Europe, according to figures from the first census of polar bears in the region released last week. That’s about 12 per cent of the total world population of polar bears. The survey, by Russian, British and Norwegian researchers, showed polar bear numbers in the region were at the low end of previous estimates of 3,000 to 5,000. Still, “a stock of 3,000 animals is relatively large in biological terms,” the Norwegian Environment Ministry said in a statement. New deal for Home Rule coalitionSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWSGreenland’s coalition government recently signed an agreement which will see it through to the end of its mandate in 2006. Some 77 items were added to the government’s agenda including:
The new coalition agreement was signed last Wednesday by the chairman of the Inuit Ataqatiqiit party and vice-premier, Josef Motzfeldt, and the chairman of the Siumut Party and premier, Hans Enoksen.
Greenland invites polar bear sports huntersSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS Greenland’s home rule government plans to open its polar hear hunt to tourists. Under existing rules, only Greenland residents who are professional hunters are permitted to kill polar bears. About 50 to 100 polar bears are killed annually, according to the tourist board. “We expect that people who go after the really big trophies and who have earlier been on elephant hunts will come. And there is already a lot of interest in polar bear hunting,” Mads Skift, a consultant at Greenland’s national tourist board, told the Ritzau news service earlier this week. Greenland’s Fishing and Hunting Directorate expects to have cleared the way for tourist polar bear hunts by the first half of the year, the news agency reported. In the Times of Oman, a newspaper in the rich oil state of Oman, readers learned they can visit Greenland and hunt polar bears, while a hunting club in Denmark has already requested more information, tickets and a licence for the first polar bear hunt. The reaction in many countries was not positive. The Daily Express in London said, “Sick tourist officials are inviting big game hunters to Greenland to shoot polar bears. Bloodthirsty tourists will pay £10,000 for a four-day expedition and to keep the bear skins as a trophy... local authorities want to cash in on the impending ban on fox hunting in England, which may see rich hunters looking for thrills abroad.”
Disasters strike Alaskan crab fisherySIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS Several men were lost in two separate incidents, just as the multimillion-dollar Bering Sea snow crab fishery opened this week, with bad weather and vessels overloaded with heavy crab traps likely responsible for the mishaps. Meanwhile, oil from a shipwrecked freighter has drifted up on beaches in Unalaska on the Aleutian Island chain, centre of the lucrative commercial crab fishery. Seafood inspectors in Unalaska are keeping an eye on boats as they land their catch, reports the Anchorage Daily News, while crab boats are following special corridors to keep them out of areas where oil has been spotted. This year’s quota for crab is 20 million pounds, worth about $35 million U.S. Flash-frozen moss signals rapid climate changeRecently defrosted moss in the Andes suggests the world is warming rapidly, said an Ohio State University glaciologist Lonnie Thompson at last month’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. In 2002, on the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes at about 18,600 feet, Thompson found plants that had been recently exposed by melting ice. The plants were carbon-dated, and results showed they were alive about 5,200 years ago, when ice froze them quickly, showing climate change can be dramatic and quick, Thompson said. Thompson returned to Quelccaya in August 2004, finding more plants emerging from the ice. Two of them dated to about 5,200 years ago, but the third, a clump of moss, came back from the carbon dating centre as being older than 48,000 years. “One interpretation is that this ice field has not been smaller than it is today for 50,000 years,” Thompson said. “It had to be colder all the way back to the time it was frozen.” Quelccaya ice cap is melting 40 times faster than it was in 1963, and other scientists at the meeting showed examples of “phenomenal” melting of glaciers in Greenland. Winter storm hits Norway hardSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS Waterfronts in Norwegian towns and cities were flooded and power was knocked out last week as a ferocious storm called Inga knocked Norway with high winds, snow and rain. Cell phone coverage was affected because of power cuts to telephone towers. Passengers on a night train from Oslo to Bergen sat stuck in the mountainous area last Thursday, after a rock and snow slide blocked the tracks. Climatologists say heavy winds, which have battered Norway, the United Kingdom and much of northern Europe in recent weeks are a sign of climate change. In Norway, meteorologists said the first six days of January were the warmest on record since 1938 in Oslo. Meanwhile, Belgium had its warmest Jan. 10 on record. Brown bears in parts of the Czech Republic and neighboring Slovakia woke up from hibernation. Flamingos at a zoo near Prague were seen to be building nests, something they normally don’t do until April. January 14, 2005 New web site for Arctic youthSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS A web site for youth in the Arctic includes facts and stories about the circumpolar world, information about issues that affect youth in the Arctic, conferences, work and internship opportunities as well as links to other sites. The site at www.okpik.org is a project of the Arctic Council’s Future of Children and Youth in the Arctic project. Norway leads world in pizza eatingSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS Norway’s 4.6 million residents eat more pizzas than any other nation, according to the Dagens Næringsliv newspaper. In 2004, Norwegians spent over $40 million on 50 million pizzas. They ate 22,000 tons of frozen pizzas, 13,000 tons of restaurant pizzas and 15,000 tons of home-made pizzas. Alaskan walrus hunter gets three yearsOne of five men accused of killing 27 walruses for their tusks near Gambell, Alaska was sentenced last week to three years in prison. Daniel P. Apassingok, 33, pleaded guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and one count of unlawfully taking a walrus. Along with four others, Apassingok was charged with shooting the walruses from a herd of about 150 animals about 19 miles from Gambell on May 21, 2003. The men are also charged with selling the ivory and transporting the illegally taken walrus. Federal law allows Alaska natives to hunt walruses for subsistence and use the ivory for limited purposes, but it is illegal to take or sell the ivory if the meat is not used. In this case, the five men took 27 heads and 15 walrus calves. “I don’t want the message to be, ‘If I’m a hunter and I had a felony and I’m out for walrus, I get a pass,’” the judge told the court. “The message should be to villagers and people in Anchorage, ‘If you have a prior felony that precludes you from having a weapon, you shouldn’t have a weapon.’” New report on Alaskan nativesSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS A report, called “Our Choice, Our Future” concludes that at least three areas needed to be addressed for Alaska natives: improving public education, addressing health issues, creating jobs and lowering the cost of living. The report, issued last Friday, provides a wide-ranging look at Alaska natives, including how its indigenous people are doing in areas of population, health, economics and education. This report analyzes the Status of Alaska Natives Report 2004, which polled 139,000 natives in Alaska. Also among the findings:
The report and background materials are available online at www.firstalaskans.org/495.cfm. Earthquakes hit north Iceland and AntarcticaSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS There were two earthquakes in the ocean off the north coast of Iceland last week. The second earthquake measured 5.5 on the Richter scale and residents of Grimsey Island, Husavik and Akureyri felt the earth move. An earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale also hit a chain of remote Antarctic islands, home to 850,000 King penguins. It was the strongest earthquake in four years. Penguins appear to have escaped a major disaster as the quake occurred deep under the sea. There were no tsunamis because the quake moved horizontally rather than vertically. A seismologist said that if the earthquake had happened beneath a city, it would probably have leveled buildings. Icebergs return to New ZealandSIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS Icebergs have been spotted in New Zealand waters for the first time in 56 years, with some of them as wide as three kilometres. The icebergs appeared to have been generated by the breakup of ice shelves in the Antarctic and are expected to drift towards South America, posing a danger to maritime traffic in the area. Icebergs were last sighted in New Zealand waters in 1948.
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