Climate Witnesses: The Cooper Island Guillemots

George Divoky is a man with a mission. For three months every summer for more than 30 years, he’s been keeping an eye on a breeding colony of guillemots on remote and normally uninhabited (at least by humans) Cooper Island, north-east of Barrow. He counts them and weighs them when they come in to nest, as attentive as any parent bird. But they’re dependent on sea ice for the feed that’s underneath, and the population is declining, because of the changes in sea ice patterns (I described in earlier entry). They’re forced to eat sub-standard food, as polar cod numbers are dwindling. He’s noted puffins, a sub-Arctic species not normally at home in this region, moving in. But chicks on Cooper are welcome prey for marauding polar bears, also struggling for food with the warming trend causing a decline in sea ice. The bears have even had a go at George’s tiny cabin, and all the plastic bottles inside it. Seems they like hot chilli sauce, not so keen on shampoo. He wanted to fly over with a search and rescue flight plane today, to check if the cabin’s been disturbed, but it was too windy.
Check out the guillemots on Cooper Island
You can listen in to an excerpt from the interview I did with George on this blog soon and the full version in Living Planet in the weeks to come.
George is an inspiring and charismatic speaker. He made quite an impression on all of us. You can also have a listen to Cara, one of our climate ambassadors, giving me her reactions to George’s talk on our windy trek back through the snow, once I get the audio version uploaded (details below). Cara’s a very lively climate ambassador and asks a lot of questions I would otherwise ask myself. If she changes her mind about the eco-renovation project, she could be a reporter at DW.
Other than that, the CC students have been busy with their usual daily chores, listening, questioning, blogging, filming, interviewing climate witnesses and being interviewed. This is attracting a lot of media interest, but they’re also very professional themselves when it comes to documenting the climate change info they’re gathering, and passing it on.
Erika put in an appearance in her pink fluffy worm outfit, very fetching. (She’s the one with the compost project). Jakob offered some tips with my laptop problem. He’s a real tech expert. I’ve been having a(nother?) bad technology day, with the laptop crashing. So excuse me if this entry is a bit thin on the pictures, I’ll make up for it later. A loss of data was averted by Dorin, a super-friendly IT expert from BASC. He fled from the old Roumania when he was 17 and has ended up in Barrow. (There is a strong multicultural element here, at the top end of the world. Our Eskimo friend Alice told me today she also has some Portuguese blood in her). People are very welcoming and helpful here. Basc has looked after us very well. Thanks to Alice, Dorin, Basc chief Glenn and all the folk we met in Barrow.
There was beautiful sun today (you could see the little ice crystals glittering in the air), so there was a lot of outdoor filming. Pieter, the CC cameraman from the Netherlands, deserves a medal, he was outside with the camera for hours.
This afternoon we watched the met man launch the weather balloon in Barrow, contributing to world data on weather and climate. And on the way home, our driver Michael Donovan (yesterday’s bear guide) let us have a photo stop on the “beach” – well the frozen over Chukchi Sea. An unbelievable landscape, “waves” of snow stretching as far as the eye could see.
I’m writing this on the plane to Fairfax. There’s an amazing view of snow-covered Arctic Alaska, the peaks tinged pink and gold in the nighttime sun. It looks deceptively beautiful. We’ve experienced the harsh realities of life in a pola region. The snow cover is diminishing as we move south. We’re a couple of hours late, so it’ll be nearly midnight by the time we get in. And we’re off to Healy at the crack of dawn. Climate ambassadors have a punishing schedule, and this accompanying reporter has to keep up with the pace. Life can be tough when you’re travelling with celebrities.