Center for Conservation Biology- Sea Otters

Background

The oilsands of NE Alberta has abundant oil reserves, although the oil is difficult and expensive to extract. Current oil prices per barrel have now made it cost-effective for companies to extract this oil. In 2002, the North American Oil Sands Corporation (NAOSC) was formed to purchase mineral leases to extract oilsands oil from an area covering 10 townships south of Fort McMurray . The company is using a method called SAGD (steam assisted gravity drainage) to extract the oil. Seismic and delineation drilling is used to determine where and how much oil is present. Steam is then used to heat the tarry oil sands and move the material through underground veins to an extraction area. These operations must occur in the winter, when the ground is frozen and are strictly controlled by the Alberta government due to the sensitive nature of boreal forest.

Impacts of Oil Extraction on Wildlife in the Alberta Oil Sands

Objectives

We are working in collaboration with the Chipewyan Dene tribe and the NAOSC to monitor impacts of the oil extraction development on the caribou, moose and wolf on oil sand property.

We are monitoring temporal changes in the abundance, distribution and physiological health of the moose, caribou and wolf on the NAOSC land, and on a separate, unexposed control population to the east of Fort McMurray where no oil extraction is occurring. We chose the moose and caribou because they are large prey species that differ in microhabitat and social structure, the caribou is threatened, and both species are important prey animals of the Dene. The wolf was chosen because it is a large carnivore and the main predator of the moose and caribou (aside from humans).

One of the biggest challenges in monitoring the effects of large-scale oil extraction is partitioning the impacts of the multiple potential pressures that result from such operations. This information is vital to determine what pressures might require mitigation. Simultaneous monitoring changes in the control site will enable us to gauge the severity of differences between disturbed and “undisturbed” areas within NAOSC land, including whether “undisturbed” areas on NAOSC land really are undisturbed, and whether temporal changes occurring within the drilling season are associated with drilling activity or naturally occurring pressures such as thermoregulatory demands.

Potential impacts of oil development on NAOSC land may include:

Nutritional stress, resulting from loss of food due to habitat disturbance and/or inaccessibility of previously used resources;
Toxin exposure from chemicals released into the water or air;
Stress from noise and other rapidly increasing human activities in the area;
Stress-related immunosuppression coupled with increased rates of exposure to, and infection from, human-introduced pathogens;
Stress-related reproductive suppression;
Changes in abundance due to increased access by hunters and trappers.

All of these effects can increase morbidity and mortality of key species, and may differentially affect target species. Such species-specific impacts can be important indicators of the source of potential problems. For example, the Dene have already reported concerns to NAOSC about recent changes in the taste of moose meat and the occurrence of white pustules in their muscle (B. Worbets, personal communication). They have anecdotally reported declines in moose, otter and muskrat that have not been observed in the endangered woodland caribou. This might suggest that animals reliant on more aquatic food sources are being differentially exposed to toxins.


	Methods
		We are determining the abundance and distribution of the moose, caribou and wolf through DNA-based mark-recapture analyses, using DNA extracted from fecal samples of these three species (Wasser et al 2004). The monitoring began in January 2006, at the same time the drilling program started, allowing us to monitor impacts of oil development on these lands from the outset. Samples are collected by detection dogs, specially trained to detect scat in deep snow, over large remote areas. Several different physiological measures acquired from these same samples, provide multiple, complementary indices that can also be tied to changes in abundance over time. These different physiological measures, which are important for partitioning the various pressures impacting these species, include: 1. Cortisol concentrations: an adrenal hormone secreted in response to many external stressors. Elevated cortisol metabolites in feces could reflect stress impacts, such as those resulting from noise and other increases in human activities, starvation or chemical exposure. 2. Thyroid hormone concentration: Animals reduce thyroid hormone under nutritional stress to reduce metabolism, making their body more efficient at storing energy. Low thyroid hormone levels thus reflect nutritional stress, implying reduced food availability. (Cortisol also tends to be elevated under these circumstances, as the animal tries to increase low levels of circulating glucose associated nutritional stress.) Toxin exposure can exacerbate these changes. 3. Reproductive hormones, testosterone in males and estrogen and progesterone in females. These hormones reflect changes in reproductive health that could be resulting from stress or toxin-related hormone disruption. 4. Immunoglobulins, IgA and IgG, best reflect infection from ingested bacteria, and exposure to disease, respectively. Stress-related immunosuppression would be reflected by relatively low levels of IgA and IgG. However, stress-related immunosuppression will most likely present itself with highly variable immunoglogbulin patterns. Some individuals will have shut down their immune system, making them more vulnerable to exposure to pathogens; exposed individuals should, in turn, respond with high immunoglobulins because they have become vulnerable to infection due to their previously suppressed immune system.

Results

Findings to date on NAOSC land shows no differences between disturbed and undisturbed sites for caribou and moose, but do show greater stress in wolves on disturbed versus undisturbed areas. This is also reflected in temporal patterns. Wolf stress levels track drilling activities over time. These results also illustrate the need to include a control site. Lack of difference between disturbed and undisturbed areas could imply that “undisturbed” and disturbed areas are actually equally disturbed on NAOSC land. On the other hand, temporal patterns in disturbance seen in wolves could simply result from thermoregulatory demands. These ambiguities will be clarified by careful comparisons to control sites where no drilling activities are occurring. Control sites were not monitored in year 1 because of logistical problems. A control site is being included, however, in our 2007 surveys.


	Implications
		A comprehensive monitoring program is essential to good environmental stewardship on NAOSC land. It allows potential damages from oil extraction to be detected and hence mitigated in the most timely, cost-effective manner, while minimizing disruptions to operations. Monitoring changes in the NAOSC caribou, moose and wolf populations over time, and comparing these values to control populations of the same species, will give us a high probability of detecting impacts quickly, allowing them to be mitigated before they become irreconcilable.



	Variable F p Species 129.9 <0.0001 Dist/Undist 23.5 <0.0001 Spp X Dist/Undist 13.7 <0.0001
	Figure 1. Cotrisol metabolite concentrations in caribou, moose and wolf on disturbed (solid) versus undisturbed (hatched) land on the NAOSC land. Disturbed is defined primarily by road densitiy and human activities. Data are from our first field season only.





			Variable F p Species 209.7 <0.0001 Session 53.3 <0.0001 Spp X Session 30.5 <0.0001
	Figure 2. Tempoaral patterns in cortisol metaboloties over the study period in year 1 for caribou, moose and wolf. Human activity was low in session A, peaked in session C, and then fell of markedly in session D when crews packed up to leave.