THE LINNAEAN SOCIETY OF NEW YORK SPEAKERS PROGRAM
Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
The American Museum of Natural History, Kaufman Theater
Speaker: Robert F. Rockwell, Professor, Department of Biology, City University
of New York and Research Associate, Department of Ornithology, American Museum
of Natural History
Subject: The Early Bear Gets the Goose: Climate Change, Polar Bears and Lesser
Snow Geese
Global climate change has resulted in early breakup of sea ice and in polar
bears coming ashore earlier. As such, they are increasingly missing
opportunities to hunt ringed seals, their main prey, in the spring.
Ironically, the earlier onshore arrival is leading those in the west Hudson Bay
population to increasingly overlap the nesting period of the 50,000 pairs of
Snow Geese nesting on the Cape Churchill Peninsula. As that overlap increases,
the polar bears are increasingly foraging on Snow Goose eggs. This talk
examines these changes in terms of the benefits to the bears and the cost to
the geese.
Robert F. Rockwell received his Ph.D. in 1975 from Queens University, Ontario,
Canada. He has worked on snow geese and polar bears for 41 years at a remote
camp outside Churchill, Manitoba. He is President of the Hudson Bay Project
Corporation and Director of Animal Research at the La Perouse Bay Tundra
Biology Station, among other scientific and academic positions that he holds.
He has authored or coauthored numerous publications on behavioral ecology and
population genetics of the Canada Snow Goose and other animals.
The meeting is open to the public, without charge. Please join us
for what promises to be a very exciting talk. Enter the Museum at West 77th
Street. If you would like to meet Dr. Rockwell prior to the talk, join us at
Pappardella's Restaurant, 75th Street and Columbus Avenue at 6 p.m. The
reservation will be in the name of Alice.
Alice Deutsch, Vice President
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