USGS.: Some Alaska polar bears losing fur
USGS.: Some Alaska polar bears losing fur
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska polar bears are losing their fur and U.S. Geological Survey scientists don’t know why.
In the past two weeks, nine of 33 bears checked by scientists in the southern Beaufort Sea region near Barrow were found to have alopecia — loss of fur — and skin lesions, said Tony DeGange, chief of the biology office at the USGS Science Center in Anchorage.
Three of four bears inspected Thursday near Kaktovik showed the symptoms as well.
Scientists have been collecting blood and tissue samples from the afflicted bears, but they do not know the cause or the significance of the outbreak, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
“Our data set suggests that this is unusual but not unprecedented,” DeGange said. Ten of 48 bears checked by the team in 1998-99 had a similar condition, he said.
In a long-standing project, the USGS has sent polar bear research teams to the area since 1984. The teams track, sedate and examine the bears to help determine their general health and habits.
This year they saw their first bear with hair loss on March 21. The team will wind up this year’s operations in May when the sea ice becomes too treacherous for safe travel.
“We took biopsies in ‘99 and couldn’t establish a causative agent for the hair loss then,” DeGange said. “But now we have this unexplained mortality event going on with seals. And they haven’t been successful in figuring out what caused the seal deaths. Is it just a matter of coincidence or is it related? We don’t know.”
Winter of 2012 is snowiest on record
for Anchorage
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — It’s bragging rights for any Anchorage resident: 2012 is in the books as the snowiest winter on record.
Flakes fell through Saturday morning and into the afternoon, and at 4 p.m. the official tally was 133.6 inches, breaking a record set during the winter of 1954-55 by 1 inch.
With much anticipation, an afternoon snowfall measurement at the National Weather Service put Anchorage over the top.
Ruler-wielding Weather Service forecaster Christian Cassell, after taking the measurement, said simply, “We broke it by an inch.”
Pope holds Easter candle at vigil
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI, carrying a tall, lit candle, ushered in Christianity’s most joyous celebration with an Easter vigil service Saturday night, but voiced fears mankind is groping in darkness, unable to distinguish good from evil.
Easter for Christians commemorates Christ’s triumph over death with his resurrection following his crucifixion.
This morning, Benedict will lead Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square, then deliver a speech from the central balcony of the basilica, at the end of stamina-testing Holy Week appearances.
China shuts down leftist websites
BEIJING — China’s Communist Party censors on Friday closed several “new left” websites, and a fourth, pro-reform site run by the Carter Center went off-line as the country’s rulers sought to stifle divergent voices and muffle signs of an ideological struggle ahead of a crucial leadership change this fall.
The web sites Maoflag.net, Jinbushe.org (or “Progress Society”) and wyzxsx.com, the Internet home of Utopia, a neo-Maoist group, were among those closed to Internet users in China.
By wire sources