Module 3: Fisheries and Wildlife

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Module 3 Fisheries and Wildlife
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Objectives

• Learn about wildlife and fish resources
• Harvesting of wildlife
• Fisheries
• Subsistence vs. commercial activities
• Management and conservation

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Terms and Concepts

• Sustainable harvest
• The fraction of a wildlife or fish population
  that can be harvested without long-term depletion
  of the resource (function of age and sex of
  harvested animals)
• Subsistence fishing/hunting
• The harvest of fish or wildlife as traditional
  food

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Fishing for trout
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Dried Arctic Char
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Terms and Concepts

• Management (of fish and wildlife resources)
• Set of regulations to ensure that the harvest is
  sustainable and based on conservation principles
• Conservation
• Protection of wildlife or fish populations and
  their habitats, especially those species
  vulnerable to disturbances, industrial
  activities, and pollutants

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Required ReadingBox 39 Polar Bears
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Important Bird Areas
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Fragmentation of wild lands
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A Key Wildlife

• Large herbivores (caribou, muskoxen)
• Important for subsistence hunting and sport
  hunting
• Important as key herbivores in taiga, tundra, and
  Arctic regions

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Caribou Distribution in North America
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Caribou in Barren Grounds
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Caribou in Mountains
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Muskox the Arctic Grazer
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Muskoxen on Bank Island
1985
1994
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Small Mammals
Arctic Ground Squirrel Spermophilus parryii
Collared Lemming Dicrostonyx torquatus
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Arctic Ground Squirrel

• Food
• stems, leaves, seeds, fruits, and roots of
  grasses, sedges, and other green plants
• woody plants
• mushrooms
• stores food (seeds, willow leaves, bog rush
  fruit) in burrow for consumption in spring
• sometimes preys on collared lemmings and young
  snowshoe hares
• Habitat
• tundra, subalpine brushy meadows, roadsides,
  riverbanks, lakeshores, sandbanks
• digs extensive burrow system that may be used for
  many years
• burrowing can break up vegetation and mix soil
  layers, which moves nutrients, changes soil
  density, and alters water flow

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Arctic Ground Squirrel Distribution
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Arctic Ground Squirrel Distribution
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Lemmings

• True lemmings (Lemmus spp.)
• Food mosses, grasses and sedges
• Habitat wet lowlands, moist patches
• Collared lemmings (Dicrostonyx spp.)
• Higher cold tolerance than true lemmings
• Food forbs and shrubs (e.g. avens, willows)
• Habitat dry and sandy hills and ridges
• Influence permafrost and nutrient cycling
• At high densities, lemmings graze (remove) much
  of the ground vegetation
• Allows summer thaw to penetrate deeper in soil
• Warmer soil temperature increases nutrient
  availability

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True Lemming Distribution
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Collared Lemming Distribution
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Required ReadingBox 49Lemmings Key Actors
in the Tundra Food Web
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Large Carnivores for Terrestrial Areas

• Wolves
• Wolverines
• Grizzly Bears
• Foxes

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Wolverine Distribution
?
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Grizzly Distribution
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Arctic fox
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Game Birds

• Geese
• Sea birds (Conservation Issues)
• Ptarmigans

Snow goose Common eider
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Raptors

• Eagles
• e.g. Golden, Bald
• Hawks
• e.g. Sharp-shinned, Rough-legged, Red-tailed
• Kites
• e.g. Northern Harrier, Osprey
• Falcons
• e.g. American Kestrel, Merlin, Peregrine Falcon,
  Gyrfalcon,
• Owls
• e.g. Short-eared, Great Horned, Great Gray,
  Snowy, Northern Hawk, Boreal

Rough-legged Hawk
Bald Eagle
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B Key Fisheries

• Fisheries of Alaska (salmons, pollock, cod, sole)
• Fisheries of anadromous trout (Arctic char,
  steelhead)
• Marine fisheries (cod, shrimp, navaga, red fish)

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Alaskas Fisheries

• Dual purposes subsistence, commercial (tourism,
  canning, frozen fish)
• Commercial seafood industry largest employment
  sector
• Sport recreational fisheries is increasing
  rapidly (conflicts)

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Anadromous Fish

• Life cycle river ? sea ? river
• Mainly char and salmon
• Subsistence, sport, commercial

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Required ReadingsBox 14 Diversity of Arctic
CharBox 55 Conserving Arctic Char
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Challenges for Commercial Activities

• Sustainability
• Artisan and seasonal
• Transport costs

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Marine Fisheries

• Productivity
• Central Arctic Basin (deep waters beyond the
  continental shelves) is ice-covered all year ?
  marine desert
• Marginal seas of the Arctic continental shelves
  of Eurasia and North America
• Water currents drive marine productivity (and
  fisheries)

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Required Reading

• Box 61
• Vent and Seep Communities on the Arctic Seafloor

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Required Reading

• The Oceans and Seas pg. 183-195
• Spatial variability in productivity
• Temporal variability (within year, among years)
• Role of polynya

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Where is the Food?
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Required Reading

• Box 62
• Life Within Sea Ice

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Phytoplankton Around Iceland
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Status of Marine Fisheries
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Tough to Manage Fisheries
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One More CollapseAgain
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Box 68