Sustaining a healthy human-walrus relationship in a dynamic environment: challenges for comanagement.

Native communities in the Bering and Chukchi seas have long relied on walrus for a multitude of nutritional, social, and cultural needs. Impacts to walrus in the past have resulted in profound consequences to these communities. For example, on St. Lawrence Island during the 1878-1880 "Great Famine" as many as 2000 people (> 90% of the island's population) starved after the walrus herds were decimated by Yankee whalers. Loss of walrus was further confounded by a wave of fatal contagion and difficult hunting conditions attributable to short-term climatic changes. Today, the ability of coastal hunters to access, harvest, transport, store, and utilize walrus is still affected by a dynamic suite of endogenous and exogenous factors, including ecological, social, economic, and political conditions. Impacts specifically as a result of changing climate will affect Native Alaskan hunters within the context of these diverse and sometimes global factors. The Eskimo Walrus Commission (EWC) works within a comanagement agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to address these challenges. However, the EWC's goals may differ from the USFWS within the current comanagement and policy context. Whereas the USFWS is primarily interested in walrus population health (assessed through estimates of population size and native harvest), EWC is primarily interested in a broader scope, encompassing the health of the human-walrus relationship. New scientific tools associated with the study and management of linked human-ecological systems may provide a framework within which to address these goals. Here we present an overview of the challenges, needs, and research relating to climate change that are of interest to the EWC and in particular, the sustained health of the human-walrus relationship.

Oil fouling in three subsistence-harvested ringed (Phoca hispida) and spotted seals (Phoca largha) from the Bering Strait region, Alaska: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon bile and tissue levels and pathological findings.

Oil spills of unknown origin were detected in three oil-fouled, ice-associated seals from the Alaska Bering Strait region collected by Alaska Native subsistence hunters during fall 2012. Bile analyses of two oiled seals indicated exposure to fluorescent polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) metabolites but levels of some metabolites were similar to or lower than biliary levels in harvested unoiled ice seals. Oiled seals had elevated tissue PAH concentrations compared to tissue levels of PAHs determined in unoiled ice seals. However, regardless of oiling status, tissue PAH levels were relatively low (<50 ng/g, wet weight) likely due to rapid PAH metabolism and elimination demonstrated previously by vertebrates. Hepatic, pulmonary, and cardiac lesions were observed in oiled seals in conjunction with measurable PAHs in their tissue and bile. This is the first study to report tissue and bile PAH concentrations and pathologic findings of oiled ice seals from the U.S. Arctic.