EASTERN CHUKCHI SEA
What is so special about the Chukchi Sea?
The Chukchi Sea is the natural 'funnel' for King Eiders migrating from breeding areas in Siberia and western North America to molting and wintering regions in the Bering Sea. The Eastern Chukchi Sea, along the Alaskan coastline from Point Hope to Barrow, is a major staging area during migration.
The Chukchi Sea is very rich in benthic biomass - invertebrate organisms that live on the sea floor. King Eiders and other sea ducks forage on these organisms, hence the Chukchi Sea is an ideal place for sea ducks to rest and accumulate body reserves during migration.
The Chukchi Sea is not only rich in animals, it is also estimated to hold somewhere between 1-14 billion barrels of oil, a huge amount that at the current oil price is worth about US$ 1.4 trillion! Due to the warming temperatures in the Arctic, oil companies are hopeful that some of these oil reserves can be extracted economically. On 6 February 2008, oil companies spent US$ 2.7 billion to lease areas in the Eastern Chukchi Sea.
Before the lease sale, the Minerals Management Service had conducted an environmental impact study, which could not properly assess potential consequences of oil and gas development due to the lack of data from the region. It stated that the probability of a large oil spill (> 1000 barrels of oil, approximately 140 tons) was estimated to be 33-52% over the lifetime of development and extraction facilities in the Chukchi Sea. Our project provides data to assess that such an event could have disastrous consequences for sea ducks.
Map of the lease sale area in the Eastern Chukchi Sea. King Eiders mostly use the corridor between the lease sale area and the coast.