BEARHEALTH
type: Concept
in scheme: projects
definition: Short Title: BearHealth Project URL: http://www.biologi.no/bearhealth-eng.htm Proposal URL: http://classic.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=134 Global atmospheric and oceanic pathways and processes result in the deposition of semi-volatile organic contaminants in the Arctic. With the ratification of the Stockholm POPs protocol the Arctic has become a strategic location with which to monitor global contaminants. Polar bears are top arctic predators, and hunted regularly by indigenous people, which so far has not been a threat to the stability of circumpolar subpopulation numbers. Polar bears are also captured and released for various research and monitoring porojects and thus accessible for biosampling. Polar bears are therefore ideal biomonitors of spatial and temporal distribution, dynamics, fate, biomagnification and potential effects of legacy and emerging organic contaminants of anthropogenic origin and present in the arctic environment. Furthermore, polar bears are indicators of ecosystem health and environmental change such as in sea ice habitat due to global warming. POPs and mercury and their concentrations in polar bear fat have been corelated to a number of biomarker endpoints of various effects including bone density, histology of immunological organs, renal lesions, liver morphology, immune function and/or hormones in polar bears from Svalbard, East Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. Polar bears are exposed to a wide range of organohalogen contaminants at relatively high concentrations because of their high trophic level dependence as well as their preference to the blubber of their prey. For example, POP studies carried out in the circumpolar Arctic have shown high levels of selected POPs in polar bears from especially East Greenland, Svalbard and Russian Arctic. The highest levels POPs such as oxychlordane, trans-nonachlor and p,p-DDE were found in bears from Franz Josef Land and Kara Sea in the Russian Arctic. Polar bears from the Weste…

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type: Concept