Hungry polar bears threaten barnacle geese numbers

A conservation success which has seen barnacle geese numbers bounce back from the brink could be under threat from hungry polar bears struggling to cope with climate change, experts said yesterday.

The number of Svalbard barnacle goslings which overwintered in the Solway Firth this year was just half of what was expected, according to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT).

The conservation group said the prime suspect for the low numbers were polar bears feasting on eggs in the nests of the geese in their summer breeding site around Spitsbergen, Norway.

Researchers, who have photographed bears in the nests and found evidence of "egg raids", say more polar bears are gathering around Spitsbergen and preying on the eggs because a reduction in Arctic ice is making it harder for them to hunt seals.

Brian Morrell, a zoologist based at the wildlife centre, said: "Our suspicion is that, as climate change reduces the polar ice-floe, making it harder for the bears to hunt their usual diet of seal, they are being driven by hunger to prey on nest sites.

"Obviously it takes a very large quantity of eggs to satisfy an animal as big as a polar bear, especially one with cubs.

"The impact is that entire nesting areas are being stripped bare of eggs and young, with potentially dire consequences for the geese, a stunning wildlife spectacle and wildlife tourism."

The bears could threaten the fortunes of the Svalbard barnacle geese population, which fell to just 300 birds in the 1940s but now sees up to 30,000 birds visiting Scotland each winter.

The turnaround in the birds' fortune was the result of a ban on hunting them, work on monitoring and the provision of a safe habitat for them at Caerlaverock, the WWT said.

The trust's chief executive, Martin Spray, said: "It is a tragedy to witness two species of conservation concern clashing over the right to survive, and demonstrates very graphically the tensions the natural world is experiencing right now.

"The situation is made all the more sad for WWT and its international partners because the barnacle goose's revival has been a conservation success story of which we were immensely proud."

Mr Morrell is heading to Spitsbergen this summer to monitor how many eggs and chicks are being lost to polar bears and whether sufficient numbers of geese are able to find higher nesting sites safe from the bears.

"Barnacle geese are very long-lived; we have records of some reaching 25 or older. "They could have time, then, to recover from one or two seasons of limited breeding success, perhaps by switching to a cliff nest site."

But he said such sites were in short supply, and the presence of the polar bears in the area were also frightening away the adult geese - leaving the nests open to attack by other species such as gulls and skuas.