Videos

Scientists continue to study how a warming Arctic will affect polar bear populations. The new 2022 Polar Bear Research Council Masterplan identifies how polar bears in zoos can help fill knowledge gaps that benefit wild populations.

This is b-roll video collected from an adult female caribou wearing a camera collar in Yukon coastal habitat, July 7, 2022. 

Alaska's coastal and offshore waters provide foraging habitat for an estimated 100 million birds comprising more than 90 different species. Researchers at the USGS Alaska Science Center work in collaboration with many partner agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities and rehabilitation centers to investigate seabirds.

In the Arctic, rivers are often thought to freeze completely during winter. Since fish need liquid water to survive, there are few places where they can live. Fish usually inhabit deep river channels and areas where springwater enters a stream.

This video showcases the latest polar bear point-of-view footage to date along with an interview of the research scientist who is responsible for the project. Released in conjunction with a new scientific study led by the USGS. 
 

When sea ice is absent in the Chukchi Sea region, walruses gather in large numbers along the northwestern coast of Alaska to rest on shore.  USGS has worked with local communities and partners across the Bering Strait to develop methods to estimate regional abundance of walruses using these coastal haulouts and to understand the population consequences of resti

Exciting polar bear cam b-roll footage from the bear’s perspective from 2014, 2015, and 2016. The USGS Alaska Science Center Polar Bear Research Project conducts long-term research on polar bears to inform, local, state, national and international policy makers regarding conservation and management of the species and its habitat.

Brown Bears, Sea Otters, and Seals, Oh My!
Unexpected interactions on the Katmai Coast
by Grant Hilderbrand, Chief of the Marine Ecosystems Office, USGS Alaska Science Center

Heading out to take water chemistry samples for a study on permafrost in the Yukon River Basin. The study examined the chemical and hydrological changes occurring in the basin due to permafrost loss. 
 

Jay Hootch, former employee of Yupitt of Andreafski, drills to take winter chemistry samples to be used in a permafrost loss study in the Yukon River Basin. 
 

Summer ice retreat in the Chukchi Sea between Alaska and Russia is a significant climate change impact affecting Pacific Walruses, which are being considered for listing as a threatened species. This twelve minute video follows walruses in their summer sea ice habitat and shows how USGS biologists use satellite radio tags to track their movements and behavior.

In order to study sea otters in the wild, research divers on the Pacific Nearshore Project must brave frigid waters from Alaska to California. Here's an explanation of how this special equipment works.

During the course of our research on walruses hauled out near Point Lay in

early September, USGS obtained aerial video footage of the

walrus aggregation.  This footage was taken from an altitude of 4,000' with

a Cineflex camera by Daniel Zatz, of Zatzworks, on contract to USGS for