Opening the Arctic to oil development could have the unintended consequence of creating “subsidised housing” for predators that feed on native nesting birds, according to a new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the US Fish and Wildlife Service and other organisations.

Opportunistic predators like Arctic fox, ravens and gulls tend to set up camp around drilling infrastructures — everything from road culverts to drilling platforms — and supplement their diets with both garbage and nesting birds from the area, the study found.

One species in particular — the Lapland longspur — seemed to suffer the most in areas close to oil development, according to the study, which  appears in the September issue of the journal Ecological Applications.

The paper’s authors monitored nearly 2,000 nests of 17 different bird species over a four-year period. Birds from five continents migrate to the Arctic each year to nest.

“This is the first study specifically designed to evaluate the so-called oil ‘footprint’ effect in the Arctic on nesting birds,” said lead author Joe Liebezeit of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “The study was also unique in that it was a collaborative effort among conservation groups, industry and federal scientists.”

The research effort was inspired by earlier evidence pointing to an increased number of predators in the oil fields near Prudhoe Bay.

“The findings of this study shed new light on growing concerns about oil development impacts to wildlife in the Alaskan Arctic, an immense region that, outside of Prudhoe Bay, is still largely undisturbed by humans and home to vast herds of caribou, the threatened polar bear and millions of breeding birds,” said Jodi Hilty, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s North America programmes.

WCS is also studying other remote areas of the western Arctic to determine where wildlife protection would be most effective in advance of development.

“Our interest is in ensuring a balance of both wildlife protection in key areas and helping industry minimise potential impacts to wildlife as they begin to pursue development in western Arctic Alaska,” said Steve Zack, a co-author of the study and coordinator of the Arctic programme for WCS. “This study helps inform industry on some consequences of development.”

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