QuoteReplyTopic: Alaskan Polar Bears Losing Hair Posted: April 04 2012 at 4:20pm
USGS: Some Alaska polar bears losing their fur
April 07, 2012
Alaska polar bears are losing their fur and U.S. Geological Survey scientists don’t know why.
In
the past two weeks, nine of 33 bears checked by scientists in the
southern Beaufort Sea region near Barrow were found to have alopecia —
loss of fur — and skin lesions, said Tony DeGange, chief of the biology
office at the USGS Science Center in Anchorage.
Three of four bears inspected Thursday near Kaktovik showed the symptoms as well.
Scientists
have been collecting blood and tissue samples from the afflicted bears,
but they do not know the cause or the significance of the outbreak, the
Anchorage Daily News reported.
“Our
data set suggests that this is unusual but not unprecedented,’’ DeGange
said. Ten of 48 bears checked by the team in 1998-99 had a similar
condition, he said.
In a long-standing project, the USGS has sent
polar bear research teams to the area since 1984. The teams track,
sedate and examine the bears to help determine their general health and
habits.
This year they saw their first bear with hair loss on
March 21. The team will wind up this year’s operations in May when the
sea ice becomes too treacherous for safe travel.
“We took biopsies
in `99 and couldn’t establish a causative agent for the hair loss
then,’’ DeGange said. “But now we have this unexplained mortality event
going on with seals. And they haven’t been successful in figuring out
what caused the seal deaths. Is it just a matter of coincidence or is it
related? We don’t know.’’
In December, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration declared an “unusual mortality event’’ based
on a number of ringed seals hauled out on beaches on the Arctic coast of
Alaska during the summer. Dead and dying seals were found to have hair
loss and skin sores.
Affected seals were later observed in Canada and Russia.
Edited by Karen Shelton - April 08 2012 at 10:33pm
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“Our
data set suggests that this is unusual but not unprecedented,’’ DeGange
said. Ten of 48 bears checked by the team in 1998-99 had a similar
condition, he said.
