Pause for Thought

Since I started this blog three months ago, I have covered a wide range of topics. Given this and the enormity of this subject, I thought that this post should summarise the main findings so far.

Here is a summary of the key points and conclusions:

• Different parts of Antarctica are being affected differently. It is easy to consider Antarctica as one unified system which is affected the same when things happen because the whole continent looks homogeneous. For example, “Larsen B has collapsed, quick! We have to find a way to stop the whole continent from melting!” In reality, ice sheets in Antarctica are complex to understand because they are affected by climate change, ocean circulations…etc. The Bipolar Sea-saw Pattern can help explain one part of the observed sea ice changes, however it is only a contributing factor out of many.
• Tourism is a recent phenomenon and as tourist numbers continue to increase, and they will do in the future, animals are being affected in different ways. But the extent that they are affected differs between species. Tourism also has indirect impacts which are just as damaging to the environment, for example oil spills.
• International organisations such as the UN try to create treaties to regulate Antarctica. I have analysed regulation in terms of tourism and found that there are flaws in them. In my view tougher restrictions are required if the environment is to remain unaltered by human actions. Furthermore, regulation can have negative and positive impacts on animals in Antarctica, for example, whaling bans, krill and penguins. It is unlikely that international organisations foresee these indirect food chain effects and this reduces the impact of regulation.
• Krill are immensely important in the Antarctic food chain but fishing activities may be jeopardising them. However, it is difficult to understand whether krill populations are reacting to fishing or natural changes in sea ice extent caused by La Niña. Because of this, separating natural impacts and human impacts is more complex than it seems. 
• Fishing is harmful for fur seals and other mammals because debris lost in the ocean creates entanglement.
• Regulation seems to be the only way that humans are trying to make amends. It seems that banning happens less often.

My Thoughts

Furthermore, I would like to use this as an opportunity to evaluate what I have posted so far, giving my thoughts on what I think I have done well and not so well.

• Diversity: I have tried to include a range of case studies throughout the blog to make it more interesting, drawing on different animals and explaining the different effects where ever I can. For instance, my discussions have drawn on fur seals, Adélie penguins, Gentoo penguins, krill, South Polar Skua…etc. I also want to point out that it has been an enjoyable experience learning about these wonderful animals!
• Geographical dispersion: I have tried to include case studies from different parts of Antarctica to illustrate what’s happening everywhere. This has been supplemented with maps (see below). Antarctica is a large continent and different regions are affected by different activities. Having said this, I believe I have focussed on west side of Antarctica more than the east side. While writing and researching, I have discovered that there is little literature on the east side of Antarctica which is the main reason why. Perhaps this is because eastern Antarctica is less accessible than the west side so research tends to be focussed here.
• Maps: I understand that naming Antarctic islands, ice sheets and seas could be confusing and hold little meaning if no one knows where they are. So where I can, I have places maps throughout the blog and highlighted where my case study locations are. Hopefully I haven’t created an overload, but I feel they are necessary!
• Balance: I have given a balanced view of the impacts throughout the blog, presenting arguments for natural causes as well as human impacts.

Is it S.O.S Antarctica?

The name of my blog suggests that, because of the human impacts, Antarctica is sending a distress signal, asking humans to leave it alone! So far, I have been counting the negative and postive/ natural impacts and they currently stand at 5-3 to negative impacts. Perhaps the continent is in trouble... In my last post I will attempt to answer the above question based on my previous posts and the total score.

Finally I wish to explain what the next few topics are. In this final month or so, I aim to discuss:

• The impact of research stations on Antarctica. Yes research has discovered ways to correct human impacts, but are there any negative impacts?

• The Ozone layer. So far I have focussed on terrestrial and marine impacts, but what about the atmospheric impact?

Thank you for reading, until next week, I’ll end with this cartoon to prepare for the next post. 

 Figure 1. The impact of research

Holidaying in Antarctica II

This post is about even more impacts that tourism has had on the Antarctic environment.

Oil Spills

Oil spills that have occurred in Antarctica have never been of the same magnitude as oil spills that occur from oil pipe leakages such as the BP oil spill in 2010, where 210 million gallons of crude oil was spilt (The Telegraph, 2011), or the Little Buffalo oil spill in Canada that occurred in 2011, spilling more than 800,000 gallons (Yahoo News, 2014). Nevertheless, this does not mean that they don’t have severe consequences when they occur. If anything, oil spills have an even worse effect because marine life here is much less adaptable and rarer. 

When ships travel down to Antarctica they sometimes have oil spills. The frequency of oil spills is shown in table 1, along with a summary of their impacts on wildlife.

Source: Aronson et al. (2011)

From the table, it is clear that oil spills in Antarctica don’t happen as often as the spills that appear in the news from drilling sites. Over the past 30 years, Aronson et al. (2011) seem to report just five spills. Interestingly, all of the reported oil spills have occurred during Antarctica’s summer, confirming that these are impacts from tourism. Some of these oil spills had no reported effects, demonstrating that there should be no concern about tourism related oil spills, right?

Not quite! The reason why oil spills in Antarctica are problematic is that Antarctica does not have infrastructure to deal with oil spills properly. They don’t have infrastructure to undertake large scale clean-up operations or clean up oil soaked mammals. Moreover it is difficult to conduct these operations because of harsh conditions during the winter. Because of this, the effects of large oil spills can have long run impacts of marine and terrestrial wildlife.

Bahia Paraiso

The largest oil spill that happened was when the Bahia Paraiso tourist ship sank, carrying 130 tourists (but luckily they all evacuated just before the sinking!). The wildlife impacts of this spill were significant. The South Polar Skua, pictured in figure 1, is a sea bird found prominently in Antarctica. Antarctica is the bird’s natural habitat. Following the oil spill in 1989, the mortality rate among this bird species increased sharply and remained high while the oil was present. This could have been because the birds feed on krill and fish, both of these were chemically contaminated as a result of the spill. Young chicks were affected the most, with all of the chicks of a sample of 53 nests dying during the spill in December (Eppley and Rubega, 1990).  One reason for this was that parents had been fouled by the diesel oil when they went out looking for food in oil slicks (where fish and krill are found). Because of this, they spent more time away from their nests to bathe in freshwater ponds before returning to their nests. In the meantime this left young chicks unprotected and vulnerable to attack by other skuas. This affect was widespread and affected the entire population.

Figure 1: South Polar Skua

Other effects of this oil spill include the transfer of oil from parents to young or from prey to predator; changes in food availability due to effects on other populations and toxicity resulting in mortality of Adélie penguins. 

So the bottom line is that oil spills are catastrophic to wildlife in Antarctica and wouldn’t even happen if it wasn’t for all those tourists and tourist companies making careless mistakes. The new score is negative impacts: 3, positive/natural impacts: 1.

Again, I understand this post may be slightly depressing, so I would like to end with a few positive points. I came across the ytravel blog which includes a page about Antarctica. Along with a great selection of photos of Antarctica, it also includes a list of reasons to visit Antarctica! It can be accessed by clicking here. Also, my next post will be about how Antarctic treaties and international laws are trying to protect Antarctica – it’s not all doom and gloom! Until then, I’m going to leave you with a short video to brighten up this post, illustrating why we should celebrate the wildlife in Antarctica. Although note - it seems that some of the clips were videoed by tourists!

Edit: If you would like to know more about tourism in Antarctica, Fiona has a wonderful post about it and also gives her perspective on tourism. Here is a link to her blog.