Daily Dose of Nature | Alaska’s Frozen Seas Life Above and Below the Ice

The Arctic is a special place that functions differently from the rest of the world's marine systems. Ice is the key ingredient that makes it one of the most productive marine areas in the world. Join Arctic conservationist Elisabeth Kruger, who works on marine mammal and community-based conservation for the WWF-US Arctic Program, for an overview of this complex, wondrous and threatened ecosystem. Exploring the Bering, Beaufort and Chukchi seas, learn how sea ice functions as the primary building block of this environment, and meet some of the charismatic Arctic residents that live on and below it, including polar bears, ice seals, belugas and bowhead whales. You’ll even get an audio tour of the Arctic marine soundscape as Elisabeth shares animal sounds she recorded via hydrophone on a trip to the ice edge, along with a video of her investigative adventure. Find out how intensifying underwater noise in the Arctic, produced from increasing shipping and industrial activity, has an outsized impact on marine mammals that must migrate through chokepoints in their icy environs. You’ll also learn about some polar bear projects WWF has recently supported.