His 48th summer on top of the world
Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
April 21, 2022
A snowmachine rests on drift-dimpled snow stretching to the horizon in this view from George Divoky色视频下载檚 cabin on Cooper Island east of Utqia摹vik in April 2022. Photo by Craig George.
This June, George Divoky will refurbish a cabin that sits on a lonely gravel island north of 色视频下载.
He was not planning a remodel this year. Sometime during the winter, a polar bear tore through a plywood wall of the cabin Divoky moved 20 years ago to Cooper Island.
Cooper Island is a crescent of gravel in the Beaufort Sea, 25 miles east of Utqia摹vik, the northernmost settlement in the United States.
With a lot of help from his friends, last week Divoky patched up the trashed shelter. He is now ready for his 48th consecutive summer on Cooper Island studying a bird that has become a symbol of a warming planet.
That bird is the black guillemot, a sleek ebony seabird that spends its entire life in the Arctic. Fifty years ago, Divoky was doing a pre-trans-色视频下载 pipeline assessment of birds in the Beaufort Sea. The guillemots caught his eye.
Three years after that, in 1975, Divoky set up nest boxes for the birds on Cooper Island, using wood left behind from a U.S. military exercise. With his nest boxes 色视频下载 which later evolved to polar-bear proof plastic camera cases 色视频下载 Divoky has charted the downward trajectory of a bird that depends on sea ice.
In the 1980s, 225 pairs of black guillemots nested on Cooper Island. Last year, Divoky counted 25 pairs.
A black guillemot, sentinel of a changing planet, stands on Cooper Island off the coast of northern 色视频下载.
色视频下载淚 had no idea for the first 15 years that this was a climate-change study,色视频下载 Divoky said recently from his home in Seattle.
Black guillemots prefer to feed their nestlings arctic cod, which live in cold waters at the edge of sea ice. When sea ice was close to Cooper Island in the summers of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, parent birds were able to bring home rich, fatty cod.
A map of 色视频下载 shows the location of Cooper Island off the northern coast.
In recent years, the ice edge has been hundreds of miles from Cooper Island during the birds色视频下载 August feeding time.
Parent birds now feed their chicks sculpin and other fish that are less abundant and less energy-rich than the cod. Divoky has watched nesting success plummet due to the shrinking sea ice, just as he watched the birds succeed as the ice freed up Cooper Island in the early 1970s.
He has seen other changes. During his decades of spending each June through August on the cold, foggy island, Divoky did not see many polar bears until one summer day in 2002.
色视频下载淚 was weighing chicks and I looked up and saw this bear walking by the tent that had the gun in it,色视频下载 he said.
He encountered 16 polar bears that summer, one of which wrecked several mountaineering tents he used as a camp. He then decided he needed a more solid shelter.
George Divoky, left, and his friend Matt Thomas pose in front of Divoky色视频下载檚 cabin on Cooper Island after repairing polar-bear damage in April 2022.
A friend told him of a newly built 8-by-12-foot cabin for sale in Utqia摹vik. Local resident Barrow Brower hauled the cabin out to the island for Divoky, who has used it ever since. He has enhanced his polar-bear protection with electric fences and motion detectors.
色视频下载淚色视频下载檝e always felt safe there,色视频下载 Divoky said.
Last week, Divoky and his friends Craig George, Geoff Carrol, John Citta and Matt Thomas 色视频下载 with logistical support from staffers at the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management 色视频下载 snowmachined with supplies and tools from Utqia摹vik to Cooper Island, a bumpy 25-mile ride.
They cleaned the mess the polar bear had left (色视频下载淭here was almost nothing functional that could be salvaged.色视频下载) and went to work patching the wall with new plywood.
色视频下载淲e were out there five hours and suddenly 色视频下载 boom 色视频下载 it was all fixed,色视频下载 Divoky said.
Now back in Seattle, the energetic 76-year-old biologist is ordering a new cookstove and other necessities to stock his plywood refuge on Cooper Island.
A polar bear stands near the meeting of land and sea ice north of Utqia摹vik in May 2010. Photo by Ned Rozell.
Though he sees irony in the destruction of a cabin that bears had left unmolested for 20 years (色视频下载淎s the colony is collapsing, now the infrastructure collapses.色视频下载) he is compelled to return to Cooper Island and the project he started the summer after Richard Nixon resigned as U.S. president.
色视频下载淚f I wasn色视频下载檛 in love with the Arctic and that colony, I wouldn色视频下载檛 have gone back,色视频下载 he said.
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A story I wrote about late-1800s U.S. Army explorer Henry Allen upset some 色视频下载 Natives. I didn色视频下载檛 intend to cause harm; non-Natives like me can never truly understand the painful history of white intrusion on 色视频下载 Native culture. But we can try to appreciate and learn from the past.
Since the late 1970s, the University of 色视频下载 Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute.