Polar Bears and Permits: BLM Alaska's Marine Mammal Biologist Craig Perham

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) works to make sure its permits and environmental impact statements include all the science they need. When a plan or permit concerns the Arctic, that science often includes the polar bear, and that is the work of Craig Perham, a BLM Alaska biologist, whom the bureau's Frontiers podcast interviewed.

Craig Perham examines the paw of a sedated polar bear on the Chukchi Sea, April 2009. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo.

A calling that started in Alaska

Perham has worked with polar bears "probably almost 20 years in one form or another." He grew up in Alaska, and like many Alaskan children he loved the outdoors; biology offered a career where he could work outside. Biologists tend to specialize through experience, and his, first with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and then the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, was with bears and other marine mammals.

Why those animals? "Marine mammals and polar bears are an important piece to a lot of people up on the North Slope," he said, so helping to find ways to keep their populations healthy and conserve them held his interest.

A polar bear track, with a human handprint for scale, on the Chukchi Sea, April 2008. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo.

More than collaring bears

His job is part of a much larger, long-term effort for generations of Alaskans, and less like the nature shows than people might think. "It's not so much going out and collaring bears or tagging seals," he explained. "It's more of facilitating and trying to maintain activities that all of us humans need and want, as well as trying to conserve these animals for future generations."

Perham looks into a polar bear excavation on Howe Island on the Beaufort Sea coast, March 2011. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo.

The hardest part, he said, is "trying to find that medium", a meeting point between people and animals. People live and work on the same land where the animals are being conserved, and the solutions "aren't very visible. You have to work at them."

Perham processes a sedated polar bear for study on the Chukchi Sea, April 2016. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo.

What's next

With BLM Alaska busy across the Arctic, there is no shortage of work. Speaking during the pandemic, Perham was looking forward to getting back into the field and to building a new marine mammal program for the BLM.

Sources

• Bureau of Land Management Alaska, "Podcast: Meet BLM Alaska's Marine Mammal Expert," Frontiers podcast; rewritten in hubnx's own words. Photos from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.