Alaskans find more dead seals along warming Arctic Sea

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A minimum of 60 dead seals have been located along beaches of the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea in northwestern Alaska, and scientists wanting to determine what caused their deaths, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Wednesday.

The dead seals – bearded, spotted and ringed seals – have been located at sites cover anything from southern edge of the Bering Strait region towards the Chukchi coastline throughout the Arctic Circle, NOAA’s Fisheries said.?

Ice inside Bering and Chukchi seas has actually been far scarcer than normal, and sea-surface temperatures are far rather than usual, based on scientists and agency reports. Although the cause of the seal die-off will be as yet unknown, said Julie Speegle, an Alaska spokeswoman for NOAA Fisheries.

“We’ve been mobilizing to get our marine mammal experts and our partners there for getting some samples,” Speegle said. “Even tho it’s a harmful algal bloom. Should it be a number of things.”

There is no ice left from the Bering Sea, along with the summer melt has long been at least 3 weeks ahead of normal, while melt within the Chukchi Sea is all about a month in advance of normal, determined by Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Sea-surface temperatures following the coastlines of the Bering Sea and the southern Chukchi Sea were to the extent that 4.5 degrees Celsius (8.1 Fahrenheit) above normal a few weeks ago and remained well above normal around this week, according to NOAA data.

Bearded, spotted and ringed seals use sea ice as platforms for food foraging, for resting as well as for raising their young. Alaska’s bearded and ringed seals are now listed as threatened beneath Endangered Species Act.

The reports of dead seals, which started in May obtainable from village residents in addition to a National Park Service biologist, coincide with mounting discoveries of dead gray whales on the West Coast from California to Alaska.

The whale die-off is designated as a possible “unusual mortality event,” a classification that authorizes an extraordinary investigation.

Speegle said hello is unclear large enough . seal and whale die-offs are connected.