Latest / The Environment in Canada Podcast / Past the Political Polar Bear

Transcript

Past the Political Polar Bear · The Environment in Canada Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Currently, we don't hear necessarily from a whole bunch of really important components like species at risk or like, you know, marshes that are filtering water and and taking carbon dioxide out and being this ecosystem that provides us all with resilience to extreme weather and things like that.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: They don't really have a voice without the people that are in these departments.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And both at a provincial level and at a federal level, we're seeing adjustments being made that I I really think are not making it better for the wildlife.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh making it more of a challenge.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of the Environment in Canada Podcast, a podcast about the environment in Canada by Sierra Club Canada.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Connor Curtis, Director of Communications at Sierra Club Canada, and I'm not your host today.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today we have an interview for you with Dr.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Stefan Peterson, the Director of Conservation and Research for the Ciniboyan Park.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: The interview is hosted by Sierra Club Canada board member Andrea Miller.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get into their chats, we have a new action that you can take for species at risk on our website.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Nature is at the core of Sierra Club Canada's new strategic plan.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: But as Gretchen Fitzgerald, our executive director, writes, quote, just before Parliament rose for the summer, the government of Canada rolled out what I am calling the extinction paper.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: A series of rollbacks and undemocratic changes that would make it even easier for fossil fuel and nuclear industries, aided by elected officials who would be willfully ignorant of the impacts of their decisions, to drive species to extinction, approve pipelines before roots were even known, and create zones where environmental safety laws simply do not apply.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Unquote.
• 1:58
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• 2:33
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• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Stefan.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Nice talking to you today about Arctic animals.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to be here talking.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's always good to talk about Arctic animals, I think.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: So what initially got you into studying Arctic animals and sort of what keeps you going with studying Arctic animals?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I actually didn't start with Arctic animals.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've been, I at one point I made myself a nice little graph for presentations that showed the increase in body size as I continued my career.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I really started out with shrews and then went to flying squirrels and then went up to like seals and polar bears and and uh and then more recently working on whales as well.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I've kind of been moving towards Arctic animals over time.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think that there were larger questions that really got me excited, and then really amazing opportunities that I was fortunate to have that led me to Arctic animals in particular.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much cool stuff out there.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: You need like little nudges along the way to get you where you're gonna go.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was kind of chance.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was a little bit by chance.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a little bit.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I was interested in genetics as it was kind of developing.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's really been um a non-stop kind of uh advancement in genetics over the last 20 years.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I started out, I was interested in kind of how animals were related to each other, more biogeography.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then I really wanted to use genetics to look at more like contemporary gene flow because it seemed more similar to what you could use to make decisions and kind of actively help species in the wild.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then that brought me to kind of the genetics that I used in my PhD for you know polar bears and seals and peri caribou.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that kind of led that that was my introduction to the Arctic in terms of research.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and so if I'm not correct, um if you're the director of conservation and research at A Cinnaboyne Park Conservancy, right?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's correct.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: So can you tell us a bit about what you do day to day with in that world?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I should just I should just tell you all the exciting things I do do day to day, because a lot of my day to day is uh writing grants and reporting on grants and not the not the more fun stuff.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, um in about 2009, uh Cinnaboyan Park Conservancy was formed and it kind of transitioned the zoo, Cinnamon Poe and Park Zoo and the Zinoboyan Park into a new phase where it was a not-for-profit that was managing a city asset.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so at that time, there were some really big decisions.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the big decisions was how do we make sure that the zoo is really a modern zoo?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And a big part of that is what are you doing in the world to conserve um animals?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was hired to start the team that now is our conservation and research department, and it focuses not only on how we can use science to help animal welfare with animals that we have in our care, but how can we be helping animals in the wild?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we do work on endangered butterflies in the south of the province, and we work with Manitoba mud puppies across a big range of the province, and we have a really strong focus on Arctic species.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, polar bears, but then also Arctic seals and beluga as well.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: In your work, how have you seen that climate change is reshaping Arctic ecosystems?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: What have you witnessed in your field work?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I've been going up to Churchill now for almost 20 years every year, and often three times a year.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: So in the spring, we'll go up kind of focused on seal often or seals often, and then in the summer for beluga, and then in the fall, um, we have some uh polar bear projects.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so part of it is kind of noticing wilder variation, really, you know, years where the ice sticks around for a long time, and what that means for you know, the town and for bears and for the seals and everything else, and then other years where it's gone really quick and you get bears on shore and you see conflict increase and all these other things around bears.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I think talking to people in Churchill who have a much longer time frame and and knowledge of that area is is often the most like striking times where you know you're on a on a thunder vehicle with a guide that's been coming up for you know since the 80s and talking about how you know you used to be able to see over the shrubs, but as things warm up, those shrubs are growing bigger, and so that landscape is is changing in ways that I wouldn't even necessarily notice, but they're trying to navigate through that.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or you talk to someone who's you know normally out in the spring sea ice hunting for their dog team, and you know how the changes in that sea ice has made it so you have to be a lot more careful, or you can't do certain things at certain times of the year.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's those longer-term kind of knowledges that really um usually where they hit home more than you know the short, the relatively short little times window that I have um up in Churchill.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: I've actually never been to the Arctic.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've always wanted to go.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what's it like up there?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like how how close are you getting to a polar bear?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it really it really depends on where in the Arctic you are.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've had, you know, I've had the really been really fortunate to spend lots of time in Churchill, but I also um have spent time in the high Arctic and Arctic Bay and Pond Inlet and around there for you know shorter time periods.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so Churchill's kind of more subarctic where you get elements of the Arctic, but you also get elements of the boreal forest all coming together in this really vibrant um ecosystem.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas if you're up in in Arctic Bay, you're getting like true, true Arctic and just like all of the amazing elements that um that come with that.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: In Churchill, we get all the Arctic seals, but then we also have harbor seals, which are more of a temperate seal, which we've done a lot of work on um because they're fascinating, and that interplay and the the trade-off with time between you know more harbor seals as the environment gets better for harbor seals.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we have indicators from colleagues that are doing aerial surveys that for ring seals it's getting worse, and they're the true Arctic um seal.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, trying to understand that change and those trade-offs and how where we're gonna end up is is pretty fascinating in a place like Churchill where it's a it's easy to see new species kind of come in as opposed to the high high Arctic, where you see different set of changes.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe not new species necessarily, um, but changes in the ecosystem that makes it either harder to see certain species or actually see species decline.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: But you're getting but you're seeing polar bears out there.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Is this yeah?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: So turtles are uh pretty amazing spot where the western Hudson's Bay and the Southern Hudson's Bay population are are uh polar bears are both adapted to not having any ice during the summer.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the way that plays out is bears in the in the spring this time of year are out on the sea ice, but that sea ice is melting and and mostly gone.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I have a needy cat around here, I hope that's okay.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the way the current is, it'll those bears will come off along the shore along the coast of Manitoba, along kind of the Wapusk National Port, park coast, and then into Ontario, and they'll hang out during the summer.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but and then in the fall, the sea ice forms first up closer to Churchill.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you get this movement of bears kind of past Churchill, and that's where we see like the ecotourism that's been built up around come to Churchill, and then you can go and see um polar bears at quite close distances in really safe ways um from Churchill.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so can you say a little bit more about the biggest threats that Arctic wildlife are facing right now?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe maybe which ones we're not talking about enough.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if there are any that you think that we should be talking about more.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think in terms of um what I think we're not talking about is probably all of the lower trophic level, the the things that make up the food chain that we don't really know a lot about.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um a couple years ago, ourselves and and colleagues with a couple of organizations went and collaborated to do some trawl surveys in off the coast of Churchill to start to try and understand just what's what's supporting all these really great numbers of beluga whales or seals or um uh or polar bears too, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we have lots of research, relatively lots of research on um on those big charismatic species.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: So um we so our approach, because we really know so little, we went and and did trawl surveys, but then we used um DNA barcoding to identify all these species and and then worked really hard to make sure that those samples and that information got made part of public records.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the Manitoba Museum now has a big collection of marine invertebrates from the Charles Survey, and DFO has a collection, and we've been all working together to truly really understand what's supporting beluga whales and what's supporting seals um in different ways.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone wants to talk about the charismatic big species, including myself, are at a soft spot for especially seals, but but we probably have a better sense of how we think it's gonna play out for those species um in relation to sea ice, because we know they depend on sea ice so closely for many of them.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's pretty clear that as we lose sea ice, as it's around less in critical time periods like the spring, that's gonna have direct effects on you know body condition and population sizes eventually, and that you know, the risk that that population has to be extirpated completely from the area.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I I totally agree.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: The charismatic animals, I of course want to talk about polar bears.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um we totally can.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I joke that often when I'm giving tours, I I say, you know, like I'll tell you lots of things.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna try and convince you that seals are way more interesting than polar bears.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: But then I I have to admit that I have no I've convinced no one in 10 or 20 years.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um but what I find so interesting about polar bears, you know, in terms of the environmental movement, is that they've really been this symbol of climate change.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of environmental activists find this not a terribly helpful symbol because of course it really, I mean, I've never been to the Arctic.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Many of us have never been to the Arctic, so it seems like something that's happening very far away to a non-human species, whereas actually climate change is affecting us.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just wondering, Len, uh what is your take on this?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like from your perspective, are polar bears kind of a useful indicator species, kind of like, I don't know, the canary of the Arctic?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or are or do you see their role in some other way?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think they still are a really useful indicator.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think they've been politicized in a way that's not super helpful and kind of makes that more challenging.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we don't have really long-term data sets for lots of species, but we have for polar bears.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, because there goes everything off my desk from the cat.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um because there was a research program that was started, you know, 50 years ago now, and we have, you know, regular sampling and a lot of research, we have like this really clear link that we can show, um, which we don't have for lots of other species.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and without that really long link, people's default and even my default is you know, how do I tease this out from just normal variability versus an actual effect of climate change?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's hard for us to get our our heads around it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: But in polar bears, it's it's quite clear, you know, less sea ice in the spring or longer time on land, poorer body condition, poor body condition, fewer cubs.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's it it fits right along.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that coupled with how evocative polar bears are, I think is a really powerful combination that's been weakened by political, like the politicization of polar bears as that symbol, which is unfortunate.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: But like at the zoo, we we are interested in lots of other species that have been impacted by climate change and more immediate or local threats.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And often like people coming to the zoo visitors, they're not excited.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're not excited to see, you know, the critically endangered butterfly that we raise, or you know, the slimy mud puppy.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when I present, you know, I really love to do this stuff on freshwater mussels, and our organization people will be like, it doesn't have a face.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think, I think you should choose better, you know.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: But whereas polar bears, you don't have to convince people that they're important, like you don't have to convince people that they should care about a huge, you know, cuddly yet deadly predator in the in the Arctic.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: So so I think there is still real power to that symbol.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um just needs maybe to be reclaimed a little bit.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe someday we can talk about the butterflies, because I actually think that's really interesting too.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: But but coming back to polar bear.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Was there a moment for you in your field work that really kind of crystallized it for you that that polar bear conservation is is just really urgent?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I I mean it's hard, it's hard not to, you know, it's probably not seeing a bear as much as seeing a figure of a population for me as a scientist.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there there's uh there's a great figure that I saw that was produced by researchers at the at Environment Canada that had the um the average mass of females that they had captured in the fall, and it's kind of been declining, you know, there's variation, but it's been declining over time.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then they had another line that was the the heaviest or the lightest female that had produced young successfully, and those two lines are are getting closer and closer together, and when they cross, then most of the females are going to be too small to have young successfully, and so it's like it's figures like that where I'm like yeah, this is this is a real thing that is progressing, and we need to find ways to make changes and and and fix that as much as we can for polar bears, or you know, it's we're gonna expect to lose them here in Manitoba.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, polar bears have a huge range, um and most of the polar bears aren't Manitoba polar bears, most of them are in the high Arctic.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's if there's time to make changes to help polar bears, there's less time to make changes for polar bears in Manitoba and in Ontario.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, those kind of more science, I guess, moments are really impactful for me.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas I know for other people, you know, it's their first, it's their first time on a Tumdre vehicle meeting eyes with a polar bear and and just like staring into their eyes where you're like, ooh, we need to need to change course here.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: I get what you mean though about um the the sort of statistics or kind of graph.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I remember when I was a kid, I went to the zoo in Calgary.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I grew up in Nova Scotia, but I used to go visit um Calgary.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember seeing this I don't know, little sign at the zoo.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a big square that was saying it was huge, like you know, rectangle, this is the human population.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was this little tiny rectangle and it said, This is all other primates.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that actually left a huge, a huge impression on me.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought you know I th maybe that was like one of the seeds that got me interested in conservation.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I I see what you're saying.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know at one point, very much long ago, I was seeing seeing a girl and we were talking about tigers, and she didn't know that like every tiger was endangered, like all of the subspecies.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that was like, oh, this isn't the right fit.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of moment like big split from that.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, a couple of years ago, we were talking and doing some planning to 2030.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, oh my god, there's a whole bunch of sea ice loss predictions that were for 2030.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm gonna be in 2030 very soon, like terrifyingly soon.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: What what have I done?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: What what have we done?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: What what's that gonna look like?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, but the power of small moments, I think, can't be overstated.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um if I understand correctly, um, part of your work at Assineboine Park Conservancy involves the Leatherdale International Polar Bear Conservation Center.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: That is, Julia.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: So could you tell me about the work that you do and that the center does with orphaned cubs?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's kind of a story that's meshed with how Manitoba manages polar bears.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that that management kind of strategy has changed over time.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um at one point, bears were they were closing down the dump, and bears went uh all over the world to different facilities, um, but there wasn't really any tracking on those bears.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so at a certain point, there was a really horrible situation that bears were in a circus.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was a Winnipeg free press reporter who came back and kind of blew that story open, and the province changed the regulations so that bears couldn't couldn't go to zoos, couldn't go out of the province.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: But they were still seeing orphan cubs on a pretty regular basis and didn't didn't have uh anything to do with you know what how do we manage these these orphan cubs.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so for a while they tried fostering them with wild parents, and that it's hard to it's hard to tease out all the details, but it seems like that didn't work for a number of reasons.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so their their next kind of um I guess strategy for these orphan cubs was to recognize that you know the polar bears in good human care have this real strong power to you know connect people with the Arctic and connect people with northern Manitoba, connect people with Churchill, and then there's an opportunity hopefully to switch that and and get people to change their lifestyle in order to benefit those wild bears.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: So because these orphans um they're usually like 11 months is when they get most often observed.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um because they can't survive on their own and they would be taken out of the population anyways, the province decided that they could come down to our facility, so to the um LIPBCC that and then um then they could go to either across like across our our road into Journey to Churchill, um, or they might be able to go to another acceptable facility, but it would all be tracked and the province would retain ownership over those bears so that if they were in a bad situation, the province could order those bears sent to another suitable facility or sent back to Manitoba.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: So they didn't give up control in the way that that earlier policy had had been happened.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: So these are bears where and and what the exact kind of um rules around which bears can come down has kind of fluctuated over time, but essentially um currently it's orphaned polar bear cubs who've been orphaned because of human-bear conflict in and around the churchill area.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, not all other bears are from that source because the policy has changed.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we do have one bear Storm who bit a guy on the butt in Churchill, and the polar bear alert pro team um was able to safely um anaestitize them, but then you can't let a bear like that back into the wild because it's too high of risk.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: So rather than euthanize Storm, the decision was made to come down as well.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the other ones are all orphan, orphan cubs.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: So the orphan cubs, I understand that the orphan cubs when they're when they're 11 months old, 12 months old, or what have you, they can't survive and out on out on their own.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: But when they get older, uh they can't ever reintegrate.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the problem?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we don't think so.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's not, I mean, polar bears are really smart, and we we think maybe you know they might be able to, if there's lots of good years and it's a really productive, they might be able to last.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um the challenge is there's already lots of bear human conflict in the north, and bears can move a really long time period or distance.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: So the risk of releasing a habituated bear back into the landscape um is really high, and the government is not willing to take that risk.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we know from kind of where bears move um that there is movement out of Manitoba into neighboring jurisdictions.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, not only is there risk by northern communities that already have to deal with a high amount of risk from polar bears because they live in their range, um, but other, you know, Nunavut and Nunavut have to deal with polar bears as well.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so all those things together, us not really being confident that we can teach a bear enough about how to be a bear to survive when it is big, and being 100% sure that it would be habituated to humans with our current state of knowledge, just makes the risk so high.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so, because those animals would normally not contribute to the wild population that is was decided, and the province is making that decision, that it would be acceptable to take them out if they were going to really, you know, high-quality places where they could show normal behaviors and they would be well cared for.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they were part of education campaigns to get people to connect bears with climate change and hopefully to make changes in their life.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um you had talked earlier about your interest in genetics and helping to understand wildlife populations.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so how does genetic science help us protect species such as polar bears?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a few ways that that genetics can get incorporated.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um kind of on the first level, there's there's all this legislation we have that triggers protection in different ways.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so in order to have something, it needs to be definable.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so genetics plays a big role in that now, defining those populations that are the units of conservation.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the only way that we define units, but um, it has big implications.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if we think about polar bears, um, and in Canada, COSIWIC does the initial assessment um and recommends a status, and that status is either accepted and the species is listed by the minister or sent back to KoseWick.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, polar bears, if we look at the unit definitions, so the designatable units, what we are calling a wildlife species in Canada, um, we're looking at is there gene flow, are there animals moving between all these parts, or is there a group that we would separate out and say, you know, this group is adapting on its own separate trajectory that in a way that it can be replaced by new individuals plopping there?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if we, you know, if we lost all the bears from Manitoba, if we brand bears from a different area, do we think that they would be the same bears, or would we be putting different bears back in there?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: So currently bears move a lot.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: We see gene flow, and so all throughout Canada, we Kosewick has decided that they're one unit.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and because there's one unit, there's populations that are stable in the high Arctic and large, and then there's smaller populations in the south, like Western Hudson's Bay, that look like they're in decline.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um but even though there's all that difference, we put them as special concern, which is you know, it could become threatened if threats don't change.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um whereas if we divided them up like the provinces do, Manitoba has um polar bears listed as threatened, whereas not for the whole population.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's big implications on how you divide things up and what level of protection they receive from from the government.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of like the the assessment side of things.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um but then there's a lot of work work on genomics now.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the ways that we're using genetics are they blow my mind away.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Just like so uh so interested.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um one of the one of the things that uh colleague is doing is looking at these epigenetic markers of aging.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so we all have kind of our DNA and it gets little markers put not put on and taken off.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And some of them are correlated really well with with aging.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: So as you go through life, these things mark and and yeah, and to the point where you can you can sample you know a polar bear that you don't know their age, look at these epigenetic markers, and also give its age within a couple years, which blows my mind.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really important for like field biologists, so we can look at non-invasive ways where you know we get hair samples and we get genetics, we can look at, you know, is it a male or a female?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: What is what is its age?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: We can look at contaminants in the hair to understand what it's been eating and and what it's been exposed to.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we're just getting more and more information that we can manage these populations without having to, you know, be more invasive, because we don't always want to do that for a number of reasons.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, so the kind of these exciting new methods.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like you know, every few years there's there's more, more cool stuff that we can learn from genetics and apply that to the conservation of different species.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: So do you see any signs of resilience or adaptation in polar bears or other Arctic species that maybe are giving you hope?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think I see more resilience than adaptation for the most part.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think it seems like I'm constantly amazed at how individual animals deal with their environment.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, polar bears, seals, beluga, they're smart, they're learning all the time, they're they're taking advantage when they can of resources.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're facing lots of you know challenges along that.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they've also always adapted to a really large amount of variability, and their their you know, their whole way of living is deals with that variability.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I think that gives me hope in that they're smart, they're learning, they have all this ability to deal with variability, and it's just if we're layering too many extremes on them is where it's really gonna fall apart.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's up to myself and my team and everyone to try and figure out ways where we can still have that variability and we can still have these animals, but they're not pushed beyond their limits.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that means, you know, when I think about um the Arctic, it's balancing, you know, how do we how do we make sure that anthropogenic changes, like development or how we're on the land, are minimal.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one less thing they have to deal with.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if we're thinking about polar bears, maybe that's like how do you reduce conflict so that we're not losing bears to human-bear conflict?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: There, that's one less thing they have to deal with.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then on the other side, we you know, one of the great kind of um opportunities working in a zoo is we have visitors that are coming by, they're connecting with people, and we have this opportunity to try and get them mobilized, either to, you know, be having discussions with their elected officials for you know, change, whether that's renewables, whether that's species protection, whether that's you know, voting with their dollars in order to push the market to places that are better for animals.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's all these sorts of ways.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it working at a zoo is like an opportunity that I didn't I certainly didn't have when I was before I came to the zoo in academia academia or working for the federal government.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, making sure that we're really trying to connect people in the best ways and give them tools and you know, either reduce barriers for them to make a change or you know, raise their knowledge level, whatever it takes to try and um bring more people together to make all small changes that then lead to some really big changes.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the the two parts of how I see us going forward successfully, I guess.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: Sort of um you you talking about people connecting with people, uh it makes me think about citizen science somewhat.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um are you're still involved with beluga bits?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: Is this can you can you um tell us about beluga bits and and why citizen science is so important in terms of observation?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I there's so many ways where you know people can get engaged in science and and help in in really you know concrete ways.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we we started the bluegets um program a few years ago, and then COVID really gave us a boost because everyone was stuck at home.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: But essentially we work with partners and we collect underwater video from um the Churchill River estuary during the summer, and that's when all the beluga are there.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we collect all that underwater imagery, um, we run it through an AI to get rid of all of the no beluga photos, and then we put it into Zooniverse and the Beluga Bits project on Zooniverse, and we get people to help us classify those images.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're I think we're over 40,000 people have helped us classify images.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're over 10 million classifications, so people go on, and it could be uh a task like, you know, you're given a picture that has a whole bunch of beluga, and you're asked to draw a box around all of the beluga.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then we take that and we use um programming to cut out all the individual beluga, and then we'll make another workflow where people will be asked, you know, is the image a good quality image?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can you see the whole side of the animal?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Can you see just the teeth, like these different questions?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then those all go into a big database where we ourselves and other scientists will ask questions.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we want to know about where we see, where and when we see calves in the estuary.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: We can pull all of that information out and really easily look at where in the estuary calves are, when we start seeing them in the year, and then that can directly recommend what we might want to do with shipping or speed limits for boats or like all these really practical sorts of applications.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so people get a great fun time looking at awesome underwater beluga photos.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of it, there's like a big pile of data that can be asked, you know, so many questions about that help manage but help us learn about beluga whales as well.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I I'm a big fan of both beluga bits, but also iNaturalist, if people want something, you know, outside and in their backyard, the iNaturalist app, you can use it as a field guide, but it also collects observations of animals and plants in your backyard.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that information is really great because we've often used it in coseic assessments, because someone who is just out and really curious about you know, a bug suddenly has a new location of an endangered species or something really exciting like that.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: So many ways that people can get involved and excited about science and learn about things.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I I think they're a lot of fun too.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: So you were talking about beluga beds, um, and you talked about how AI separates out the photos where there is no beluga.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: But can AI do this work of determining if the photo is good or not good, or how much of the of the beluga you can see?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say AI is getting better all the time, but it still humans tend to be better at the tasks that we're giving it.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it would take us a lot to train um how to recognize like the age class of a beluga.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's hard to train because beluga calves are gray, and then as they get older, they get whiter and whiter, and when they're adults, they're this gleaming white beluga color that we all are familiar with.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's an overcast day, that changes the color, if it's uh you know, cloudy water, that changes the color.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you're you have to train the AI to almost recognize kind of the weather conditions and the like the murkiness of the water as well as how to age a beluga.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas we can train people with a few short tutorials to to get pretty accurate about that.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So there's different ways that we can use AI.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think with enough data, we might be able to do some stuff, but uh but currently people Are way better.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing that we don't get from AI that we have gotten from our volunteers on Beluga Bits is through the questions and the discussions that we have, really like interesting and things we hadn't think of, problems, are highlighted.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we had a separate workflow.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: We were seeing lots of jellyfish in the beluga pitchers.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we started a workflow that was for identifying jellyfish, whereas that okay, there's lion's mane jellyfish, and there's like two comb jellies identify them.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then over time we ended up with a lot of a lot of messages that were like, well, what about this one?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what about this one?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out that there were two other species of comb jelly that we didn't realize were in that system.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: They hadn't been reported from Churchill Estuary.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so we have this really cool side project now looking at you know jellyfish as indicators of that ecosystem, but also maybe changes in that ecosystem if we have those jellyfish really well characterized.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if there's more shipping at the Port of Churchill and we get jellyfish as an invasive, you know, we have a way to sample hundreds of hours during the summer to maybe detect some of these newcomers to the ecosystem.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: But an AI would never like it would just classify all those into the closest thing.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't flag that there's something, something different or something new or in that system.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a real power and to the care and attention and questions that come out of the community that builds around um uh a citizen science project or a community scientist project.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: So can anybody take part with in Beluga Bits?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: If they can, if they have an internet, um they can they can go on.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um I like I like scoring my progress.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if you create a profile which is free, you can it'll track, you know, how many classifications you've made or or things like that.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you can go in on as a guest as well.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we we try to always have at least one workflow going, um, but sometimes there'll be multiple workflows.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, and you can help out by checking out Beluga and answering a few a few questions around that.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one way that people can support conservation.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, is there any other way that you can think of that ordinary Canadians can meaningfully support Arctic conservation efforts?
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think there's there's probably, I don't know, there's probably a lot, but I like to focus on kind of a few that are more specific.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: So right now there's you know lots of changes in the world, there's lots of changes in our political landscape, there's lots of changes in laws like our species at risk act, there's lots of things that are being proposed.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: So get involved and get engaged, and when you know, when things come forward, be ready to lend your voice or talk to your MLA or your MP or your local, you know, your local government to say, hey, this is this is not really in the best interests of wildlife or you know, climate emissions, which are have a direct impact on on Arctic wildlife as well.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there's lots of things, you know.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: You want your government to support more renewables rather than the standard kind of what what they've been doing all along, things like that.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's you have this voice, both on that political realm, but also in the people that are around you as well.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you can be talking to friends, you can, and you have an access.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: We know we share a lot of information with people we trust.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you're you trust your friends, you don't have to give your friends lectures or anything like that.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: That would be popular.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you can, you know, you can maybe ask them questions about why they have a certain opinion, and you know, wouldn't there be a way where we could have both wins for the environment and for um the economic trade-offs or whatever's being traded off?
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there's those real things in their life.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's ways that you can, you know, you can accomplish things and help yourselves.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I always think of, you know, I I have a five-year plan for my department, I have a 10-year plan for my organization, I have, you know, goals in my house to do this and that.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: I can set myself a five-year plan to reduce my climate impact, my carbon footprint.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of that stuff is gonna get accomplished as we move to electrical transport and move away from fossil fuels.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, try a really great, you know, recipe that's lower for lower on the food chain and doesn't involve such you know high-intensity um climate-emitting food that's you know shipped around the country or is really expensive that way.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, and then there's lots of really great organizations that are doing incredible things for conservation in the Arctic and across Canada.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: And people should, I think, consider supporting them in different ways, whether that's volunteering for them, you know, for for in our kind of small patch of the world in Winnipeg, um, I don't think people realize that even, you know, coming to visit the zoo or visiting the park and the leaf and the attractions that we have, that money helps support our conservation efforts in in different ways.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it it could be a direct donation to an organization that's working, but it could be supporting them in other ways that are more in line with what you want to do.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: You want to have a great day out with your family at the zoo, that's awesome.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: But you're also helping conservation, and that's really important as well.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, last question.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you were talking a little bit about using your voice.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm wondering what policy changes or protections, say in the next decade, what would make the biggest difference for Arctic wildlife?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I mean right now there's there's a lot of changes in kind of staffing at federal level.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's quite concerning to me because I don't think there was enough people doing the jobs of looking out for wildlife to start with.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 100% biased because of kind of the realm I work in.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I also see lots of you know young up-and-coming professionals not getting contract renewed, contracts renewed right now as the government is trying to reduce all the departments by 15% across the board.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we're we're seeing these broader cuts to departments that are looking out for wildlife and and looking out for ultimately our our safety and our good and our health by keeping the environment um strong and resilient.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I have real concerns currently that we're seeing this quiet shift and quiet kind of siphoning off of all the the people that would be working really hard to maybe help the environment and protect species at risk and things like that.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: So um I think a policy change that would you know invest in the the structures and the people that protect the environment would be amazing to see.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that could be, you know, more investment in communities to you know, Indigenous guardians or communities to to steward and really prioritize species at risk within their jurisdiction, their local area, their community, um to their scientists and and staff that are out there looking for you know the rare species to make sure that if there's something proposed, that that's voice.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: Those rare species get a voice and are balanced in that the decision to put in a pipeline or put in, you know, a new mall or whatever it's gonna be.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I realize that these are all decisions that we make, but currently we don't hear necessarily from a whole bunch of really important components like species at risk or like you know, marshes that are filtering water and and taking carbon dioxide out and being this ecosystem that provides us all with resilience to extreme weather and things like that.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: They don't really have a voice without the people that are in these departments, and both at a provincial level and at a federal level, we're seeing adjustments being made that I I really think are are not making it better for the wildlife.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh making it more of a challenge.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there's always trade-offs.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're always we're always making decisions, we always need to be making decisions, but we should be honestly weighing what what those trade-offs are as much as we can.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I like what you say about how we all need to be using our voices to to call attention to these issues.
• 55:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you very much, Stefan.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: I really enjoyed talking to you and meeting you, and I hope to talk to you some other time about butterflies.
• 55:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that it's been a great conversation.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: If we're talking about butterflies, I have really amazing conservation scientists with me that will be much better to talk to you about that.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: The amazingness of butterflies.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_02: Bye-bye.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, take care.
• 55:40
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