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Hotter Droughts — Yep, it's getting hotter and drier out there. California's hotter drought has already killed millions of trees, particularly in low-elevation forests. “Hotter droughts,” which are severe droughts associated with human-caused climate change, are an emerging but poorly understood threat to forests worldwide. As climate change drives much of the nation into hotter, drier conditions, forest managers and scientists are not able to rely on historical patterns of temperature and precipitation for planning and decision making. Yet it is critical to identify forests and tree species most at risk.
Thus, USGS scientists and their collaborators are using California’s recent hotter drought (2012-2015) as a preview of the future, gaining the information needed to help forest managers adapt to a warming world.
Read more about hotter droughts and effects on forests at on.doi.gov/HotterDroughts
Photo credit: Nathan Stephenson, USGS.
Check out the latest and greatest scientific instruments for environmental research from LI-COR Biosciences, in LEGO form! Several scientists measure photosynthesis, soil flux, leaf area, and light, while an eddy covariance tower silently measures CO2 and CH4 flux.
Aambyvalley rd., Upper Lonavala Maharashtra India
To consider termites plunderers is unfair. They are the most important animals in a forest ecosystem, single-handedly decomposing 40% to 100% of the decaying wood and thereby enriching the soil. Subterranean termites, which are among the ones that bothers us humans, serve us well too. As they tunnel through the soil, building swarming tubes to forage for food, they increase the soil’s porosity, facilitating greater percolation of water. Termites are known to dig as deep as over 100 feet in search of water to maintain the humidity of their mounds. As early as 500 CE, Indian astronomer Varahamihira wrote in the Brihat-Samhita that termite mounds were indicators of ground water and mineral deposits.
Aambyvalley Rd.,Lonavala,Mah.,India
larvae feeds on Ricinus communis and Tragia involucrata.I have yet to locate them.
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Prides are family units that may comprise anywhere from two to 40 lions—including up to to three or four males, a dozen or so females, and their young. All of a pride's lionesses are related, and female cubs typically stay with the group as they age.
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear and land carnivore, with adult males weighing 300–800 kg (660–1,760 lb). The species is sexually dimorphic, as adult females are much smaller. The polar bear is white- or yellowish-furred with black skin and a thick layer of fat. It is more slender than the brown bear, with a narrower skull, longer neck and lower shoulder hump. Its teeth are sharper and more adapted to cutting meat. The paws are large and allow the bear to walk on ice and paddle in the water.
Polar bears are both terrestrial and pagophilic (ice-living) and are considered to be marine mammals due to their dependence on marine ecosystems. They prefer the annual sea ice but live on land when the ice melts in the summer. They are mostly carnivorous and specialized for preying on seals, particularly ringed seals. Such prey is typically taken by ambush; the bear may stalk its prey on the ice or in the water, but also will stay at a breathing hole or ice edge to wait for prey to swim by. The bear primarily feeds on the seal's energy-rich blubber. Other prey include walruses, beluga whales and some terrestrial animals. Polar bears are usually solitary but can be found in groups when on land. During the breeding season, male bears guard females and defend them from rivals. Mothers give birth to cubs in maternity dens during the winter. Young stay with their mother for up to two and a half years.
The polar bear is considered to be a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with an estimated total population of 22,000 to 31,000 individuals. Its biggest threats are climate change, pollution and energy development. Climate change has caused a decline in sea ice, giving the polar bear less access to its favoured prey and increasing the risk of malnutrition and starvation. Less sea ice also means that the bears must spend more time on land, increasing conflicts with people. Polar bears have been hunted, both by native and non-native peoples, for their coats, meat and other items. They have been kept in captivity in zoos and circuses and are prevalent in art, folklore, religion and modern culture.
Naming
The polar bear was given its common name by Thomas Pennant in A Synopsis of Quadrupeds (1771). It was known as the "white bear" in Europe between the 13th and 18th centuries, as well as "ice bear", "sea bear" and "Greenland bear". The Norse referred to it as isbjørn ("ice bear") and hvitebjørn ("white bear"). The bear is called nanook by the Inuit. The Netsilik cultures additionally have different names for bears based on certain factors, such as sex and age: these include adult males (anguraq), single adult females (tattaq), gestating females (arnaluk), newborns (hagliaqtug), large adolescents (namiaq) and dormant bears (apitiliit). The scientific name Ursus maritimus is Latin for "sea bear".
Taxonomy
Carl Linnaeus classified the polar bear as a type of brown bear (Ursus arctos), labelling it as Ursus maritimus albus-major, articus in the 1758 edition of his work Systema Naturae. Constantine John Phipps formally described the polar bear as a distinct species, Ursus maritimus in 1774, following his 1773 voyage towards the North Pole. Due to its adaptations to a marine environment, some taxonomists like Theodore Knottnerus-Meyer have placed the polar bear in its genus Thalarctos. However Ursus is widely considered to be the valid genus for the species based on the fossil record and the fact that it can breed with the brown bear.
Different subspecies have been proposed including Ursus maritimus maritimus and U. m. marinus. However these are not supported and the polar bear is considered to be monotypic. One possible fossil subspecies, U. m. tyrannus, was posited in 1964 by Björn Kurtén, who reconstructed the subspecies from a single fragment of an ulna which was approximately 20 percent larger than expected for a polar bear. However, re-evaluation in the 21st century has indicated that the fragment likely comes from a giant brown bear.
Evolution
The polar bear is one of eight extant species in the bear family Ursidae and of six extant species in the subfamily Ursinae. A possible phylogeny of extant bear species is shown in a cladogram based on complete mitochondrial DNA sequences from Yu et al. (2007). The polar bear and the brown bear form a close grouping, while the relationships of the other species are not very well resolved.
Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)
Spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus)
Ursinae
Sloth bear (Melursus ursinus)
Sun bear (Helarctos malayanus)
Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus)
American black bear (Ursus americanus)
Polar bear (Ursus maritimus)
Brown bear (Ursus arctos)
A more recent phylogeny below is based on a 2017 genetic study. The study concludes that Ursine bears originated around 5 million years ago and show extensive hybridization of species in their lineage.
Ursidae
Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)
Spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus)
Ursinae
Sloth bear (Melursus ursinus)
Sun bear (Helarctos malayanus)
Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus)
American black bear (Ursus americanus)
Polar bear (Ursus maritimus)
Brown bear (Ursus arctos)
Fossils of polar bears are uncommon. The oldest known fossil is a 130,000- to 110,000-year-old jaw bone, found on Prince Charles Foreland, Norway, in 2004. Scientists in the 20th century surmised that polar bears directly descended from a population of brown bears, possibly in eastern Siberia or Alaska. Mitochondrial DNA studies in the 1990s and 2000s supported the status of the polar bear as a derivative of the brown bear, finding that some brown bear populations were more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears, particularly the ABC Islands bears of Southeast Alaska. A 2010 study estimated that the polar bear lineage split from other brown bears around 150,000 years ago.
More extensive genetic studies have refuted the idea that polar bears are directly descended from brown bears and found that the two species are separate sister lineages. The genetic similarities between polar bears and some brown bears were found to be the result of interbreeding A 2012 study estimated the split between polar and brown bears as occurring around 600,000 years ago. A 2022 study estimated the divergence as occurring even earlier at over one million years ago. Glaciation events over hundreds of thousands of years led to both the origin of polar bears and their subsequent interactions and hybridizations with brown bears.
Studies in 2011 and 2012 concluded that gene flow went from brown bears to polar bears during hybridization. In particular, a 2011 study concluded that living polar bear populations derived their maternal lines from now-extinct Irish brown bears. Later studies have clarified that gene flow went from polar to brown bears rather than the reverse. Up to 9 percent of the genome of ABC bears was transferred from polar bears, while Irish bears had up to 21.5 percent polar bear origin. Mass hybridization between the two species appears to have stopped around 200,000 years ago. Modern hybrids are relatively rare in the wild.
Analysis of the number of variations of gene copies in polar bears compared with brown bears and American black bears shows distinct adaptions. Polar bears have a less diverse array of olfactory receptor genes, a result of there being fewer odours in their Arctic habitat. With its carnivorous, high-fat diet the species has fewer copies of the gene involved in making amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch, and more selection for genes for fatty acid breakdown and a more efficient circulatory system. The polar bear's thicker coat is the result of more copies of genes involved in keratin-creating proteins.
Characteristics
The polar bear is the largest living species of bear and land carnivore, though some brown bear subspecies like the Kodiak bear can rival it in size. Males are generally 200–250 cm (6.6–8.2 ft) long with a weight of 300–800 kg (660–1,760 lb). Females are smaller at 180–200 cm (5.9–6.6 ft) with a weight of 150–300 kg (330–660 lb). Sexual dimorphism in the species is particularly high compared with most other mammals. Male polar bears also have proportionally larger heads than females. The weight of polar bears fluctuates during the year, as they can bulk up on fat and increase their mass by 50 percent. A fattened, pregnant female can weigh as much as 500 kg (1,100 lb). Adults may stand 130–160 cm (4.3–5.2 ft) tall at the shoulder. The tail is 76–126 mm (3.0–5.0 in) long. The largest polar bear on record, reportedly weighing 1,002 kg (2,209 lb), was a male shot at Kotzebue Sound in northwestern Alaska in 1960.
Compared with the brown bear, this species has a more slender build, with a narrower, flatter and smaller skull, a longer neck, and a lower shoulder hump. The snout profile is curved, resembling a "Roman nose". They have 34–42 teeth including 12 incisors, 4 canines, 8–16 premolars and 10 molars. The teeth are adapted for a more carnivorous diet than that of the brown bear, having longer, sharper and more spaced out canines, and smaller, more pointed cheek teeth (premolars and molars). The species has a large space or diastema between the canines and cheek teeth, which may allow it to better bite into prey. Since it normally preys on animals much smaller than it, the polar bear does not have a particularly strong bite Polar bears have large paws, with the front paws being broader than the back. The feet are hairier than in other bear species, providing warmth and friction when stepping on snow and sea ice. The claws are small but sharp and hooked and are used both to snatch prey and climb onto ice.
Polar bear jumping on floating ice at Svalbard
The coat consists of dense underfur around 5 cm (2.0 in) long and guard hairs around 15 cm (5.9 in) long. Males have long hairs on their forelegs, which is thought to signal their fitness to females. The outer surface of the hairs has a scaly appearance, and the guard hairs are hollow, which allows the animals to trap heat and float in the water. The transparent guard hairs forward scatter ultraviolet light between the underfur and the skin, leading to a cycle of absorption and re-emission, keeping them warm. The fur appears white due to the backscatter of incident light and the absence of pigment. Polar bears gain a yellowish colouration as they are exposed more to the sun. This is reversed after they moult. It can also be grayish or brownish. Their light fur provides camouflage in their snowy environment. After emerging from the water, the bear can easily shake itself dry before freezing since the hairs are resistant to tangling when wet. The skin, including the nose and lips, is black and absorbs heat. Polar bears have a 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in) thick layer of fat underneath the skin, which provides both warmth and energy. Polar bears maintain their core body temperature at about 36.9 °C (98 °F). Overheating is countered by a layer of highly vascularized striated muscle tissue and finely controlled blood vessels. Bears also cool off by entering the water.
The eyes of a polar bear are close to the top of the head, which may allow them to stay out of the water when the animal is swimming at the surface. They are relatively small, which may be an adaption against blowing snow and snow blindness. Polar bears are dichromats, and lack the cone cells for seeing green. They have many rod cells which allow them to see at night. The ears are small, allowing them to retain heat and not get frostbitten. They can hear best at frequencies of 11.2–22.5 kHz, a wider frequency range than expected given that their prey mostly makes low-frequency sounds. The nasal concha creates a large surface area, so more warm air can move through the nasal passages. Their olfactory system is also large and adapted for smelling prey over vast distances. The animal has reniculate kidneys which filter out the salt in their food.
Distribution and habitat
Polar bears inhabit the Arctic and adjacent areas. Their range includes Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Russia and the Svalbard Archipelago of Norway. Polar bears have been recorded 25 km (16 mi) from the North Pole. The southern limits of their range include James Bay and Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada and St. Matthew Island and the Pribilof Islands of Alaska. They are not permanent residents of Iceland but have been recorded visiting there if they can reach it via sea ice. Due to minimal human encroachment on the bears' remote habitat, they can still be found in much of their original range, more so than any other large land carnivore.
Polar bears have been divided into at least 18 subpopulations labelled East Greenland (ES), Barents Sea (BS), Kara Sea (KS), Laptev Sea (LVS), Chukchi Sea (CS), northern and southern Beaufort Sea (SBS and NBS), Viscount Melville (VM), M'Clintock Channel (MC), Gulf of Boothia (GB), Lancaster Sound (LS), Norwegian Bay (NB), Kane Basin (KB), Baffin Bay (BB), Davis Strait (DS), Foxe Basin (FB) and the western and southern Hudson Bay (WHB and SHB) populations. Bears in and around the Queen Elizabeth Islands have been proposed as a subpopulation but this is not universally accepted. A 2022 study has suggested that the bears in southeast Greenland should be considered a different subpopulation based on their geographic isolation and genetics. Polar bear populations can also be divided into four gene clusters: Southern Canadian, Canadian Archipelago, Western Basin (northwestern Canada west to the Russian Far East) and Eastern Basin (Greenland east to Siberia).
The polar bear is dependent enough on the ocean to be considered a marine mammal. It is pagophilic and mainly inhabits annual sea ice covering continental shelves and between islands of archipelagos. These areas, known as the "Arctic Ring of Life", have high biological productivity. The species tends to frequent areas where sea ice meets water, such as polynyas and leads, to hunt the seals that make up most of its diet. Polar bears travel in response to changes in ice cover throughout the year. They are forced onto land in summer when the sea ice disappears. Terrestrial habitats used by polar bears include forests, mountains, rocky areas, lakeshores and creeks. In the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, where the sea ice breaks off and floats north during the summer, polar bears generally stay on the ice, though a large portion of the population (15–40%) has been observed spending all summer on land since the 1980s. Some areas have thick multiyear ice that does not completely melt and the bears can stay on all year, though this type of ice has fewer seals and allows for less productivity in the water.
Behaviour and ecology
Polar bears may travel areas as small as 3,500 km2 (1,400 sq mi) to as large as 38,000 km2 (15,000 sq mi) in a year, while drifting ice allows them to move further. Depending on ice conditions, a bear can travel an average of 12 km (7.5 mi) per day. These movements are powered by their energy-rich diet. Polar bears move by walking and galloping and do not trot. Walking bears tilt their front paws towards each other. They can run at estimated speeds of up to 40 km/h (25 mph) but typically move at around 5.5 km/h (3.4 mph). Polar bears are also capable swimmers and can swim at up to 6 km/h (3.7 mph). One study found they can swim for an average of 3.4 days at a time and travel an average of 154.2 km (95.8 mi). They can dive for as long as three minutes. When swimming, the broad front paws do the paddling, while the hind legs play a role in steering and diving.
Mother bear and cubs sleeping
Most polar bears are active year-round. Hibernation occurs only among pregnant females. Non-hibernating bears typically have a normal 24-hour cycle even during days of all darkness or all sunlight, though cycles less than a day are more common during the former. The species is generally diurnal, being most active early in the day. Polar bears sleep close to eight hours a day on average. They will sleep in various positions, including curled up, sitting up, lying on one side, on the back with limbs spread, or on the belly with the rump elevated. On sea ice, polar bears snooze at pressure ridges where they dig on the sheltered side and lie down. After a snowstorm, a bear may rest under the snow for hours or days. On land, the bears may dig a resting spot on gravel or sand beaches. They will also sleep on rocky outcrops. In mountainous areas on the coast, mothers and subadults will sleep on slopes where they can better spot another bear coming. Adult males are less at risk from other bears and can sleep nearly anywhere.
Social life
Polar bears are typically solitary, aside from mothers with cubs and mating pairs. On land, they are found closer together and gather around food resources. Adult males, in particular, are more tolerant of each other in land environments and outside the breeding season. They have been recorded forming stable "alliances", travelling, resting and playing together. A dominant hierarchy exists among polar bears with the largest mature males ranking at the top. Adult females outrank subadults and adolescents and younger males outrank females of the same age. In addition, cubs with their mothers outrank those on their own. Females with dependent offspring tend to stay away from males, but are sometimes associated with other female–offspring units, creating "composite families".
Polar bears are generally quiet but can produce various sounds. Chuffing, a soft pulsing call, is made by mother bears presumably to keep in contact with their young. During the breeding season, adult males will chuff at potential mates. Unlike other animals where chuffing is passed through the nostrils, in polar bears it is emitted through a partially open mouth. Cubs will cry for attention and produce humming noises while nursing. Teeth chops, jaw pops, blows, huffs, moans, growls and roars are heard in more hostile encounters. A polar bear visually communicates with its eyes, ears, nose and lips. Chemical communication can also be important: bears secrete their scent from their foot pads into their tracks, allowing individuals to keep track of one another.
Diet and hunting
The polar bear is a hypercarnivore, and the most carnivorous species of bear. It is an apex predator of the Arctic, preying on ice-living seals and consuming their energy-rich blubber. The most commonly taken species is the ringed seal, but they also prey on bearded seals and harp seals. Ringed seals are ideal prey as they are abundant and small enough to be overpowered by even small bears. Bearded seal adults are larger and are more likely to break free from an attacking bear, hence adult male bears are more successful in hunting them. Less common prey are hooded seals, spotted seals, ribbon seals and the more temperate-living harbour seals. Polar bears, mostly adult males, will occasionally hunt walruses, both on land and ice, though they mainly target the young, as adults are too large and formidable, with their thick skin and long tusks.
Bear feeding on a bearded seal
Besides seals, bears will prey on cetacean species such as beluga whales and narwhals, as well as reindeer, birds and their eggs, fish and marine invertebrates. They rarely eat plant material as their digestive system is too specialized for animal matter, though they have been recorded eating berries, moss, grass and seaweed. In their southern range, especially near Hudson Bay and James Bay, polar bears endure all summer without sea ice to hunt from and must subsist more on terrestrial foods. Fat reserves allow polar bears to survive for months without eating. Cannibalism is known to occur in the species.
Polar bears hunt their prey in several different ways. When a bear spots a seal hauling out on the sea ice, it slowly stalks it with the head and neck lowered, possibly to make its dark nose and eyes less noticeable. As it gets closer, the bear crouches more and eventually charges at a high speed, attempting to catch the seal before it can escape into its ice hole. Some stalking bears need to move through water; traversing through water cavities in the ice when approaching the seal or swimming towards a seal on an ice floe. The polar bear can stay underwater with its nose exposed. When it gets close enough, the animal lunges from the water to attack.
During a limited time in spring, polar bears will search for ringed seal pups in their birth lairs underneath the ice. Once a bear catches the scent of a hiding pup and pinpoints its location, it approaches the den quietly to not alert it. It uses its front feet to smash through the ice and then pokes its head in to catch the pup before it can escape. A ringed seal's lair can be more than 1 m (3.3 ft) below the surface of the ice and thus more massive bears are better equipped for breaking in. Some bears may simply stay still near a breathing hole or other spot near the water and wait for prey to come by. This can last hours and when a seal surfaces the bear will try to pull it out with its paws and claws. This tactic is the primary hunting method from winter to early spring.
Bear with whale carcass
Bears hunt walrus groups by provoking them into stampeding and then look for young that have been crushed or separated from their mothers during the turmoil. There are reports of bears trying to kill or injure walruses by throwing rocks and pieces of ice on them. Belugas and narwhals are vulnerable to bear attacks when they are stranded in shallow water or stuck in isolated breathing holes in the ice. When stalking reindeer, polar bears will hide in vegetation before an ambush. On some occasions, bears may try to catch prey in open water, swimming underneath a seal or aquatic bird. Seals in particular, however, are more agile than bears in the water. Polar bears rely on raw power when trying to kill their prey, and will employ bites and paw swipes. They have the strength to pull a mid-sized seal out of the water or haul a beluga carcass for quite some distance. Polar bears only occasionally store food for later—burying it under snow—and only in the short term.
Arctic foxes routinely follow polar bears and scavenge scraps from their kills. The bears usually tolerate them but will charge a fox that gets too close when they are feeding. Polar bears themselves will scavenge. Subadult bears will eat remains left behind by others. Females with cubs often abandon a carcass when they see an adult male approaching, though are less likely to if they have not eaten in a long time. Whale carcasses are a valuable food source, particularly on land and after the sea ice melts, and attract several bears. In one area in northeastern Alaska, polar bears have been recorded competing with grizzly bears for whale carcasses. Despite their smaller size, grizzlies are more aggressive and polar bears are likely to yield to them in confrontations. Polar bears will also scavenge at garbage dumps during ice-free periods.
Reproduction and development
Polar bear mating takes place on the sea ice and during spring, mostly between March and May. Males search for females in estrus and often travel in twisting paths which reduces the chances of them encountering other males while still allowing them to find females. The movements of females remain linear and they travel more widely. The mating system can be labelled as female-defence polygyny, serial monogamy or promiscuity.
Upon finding a female, a male will try to isolate and guard her. Courtship can be somewhat aggressive, and a male will pursue a female if she tries to run away. It can take days for the male to mate with the female which induces ovulation. After their first copulation, the couple bond. Undisturbed polar bear pairings typically last around two weeks during which they will sleep together and mate multiple times. Competition for mates can be intense and this has led to sexual selection for bigger males. Polar bear males often have scars from fighting. A male and female that have already bonded will flee together when another male arrives. A female mates with multiple males in a season and a single litter can have more than one father.
Polar bear cubs
When the mating season ends, the female will build up more fat reserves to sustain both herself and her young. Sometime between August and October, the female constructs and enters a maternity den for winter. Depending on the area, maternity dens can be found in sea ice just off the coastline or further inland and may be dug underneath snow, earth or a combination of both. The inside of these shelters can be around 1.5 m (4.9 ft) wide with a ceiling height of 1.2 m (3.9 ft) while the entrance may be 2.1 m (6.9 ft) long and 1.2 m (3.9 ft) wide. The temperature of a den can be much higher than the outside. Females hibernate and give birth to their cubs in the dens. Hibernating bears fast and internally recycle bodily waste. Polar bears experience delayed implantation and the fertilized embryo does not start development until the fall, between mid-September and mid-October. With delayed implantation, gestation in the species lasts seven to nine months but actual pregnancy is only two months.
Mother polar bears typically give birth to two cubs per litter. As with other bear species, newborn polar bears are tiny and altricial. The newborns have woolly hair and pink skin, with a weight of around 600 g (21 oz). Their eyes remain closed for a month. The mother's fatty milk fuels their growth, and the cubs are kept warm both by the mother's body heat and the den. The mother emerges from the den between late February and early April, and her cubs are well-developed and capable of walking with her. At this time they weigh 10–15 kilograms (22–33 lb). A polar bear family stays near the den for roughly two weeks; during this time the cubs will move and play around while the mother mostly rests. They eventually head out on the sea ice.
Cubs under a year old stay close to their mother. When she hunts, they stay still and watch until she calls them back. Observing and imitating the mother helps the cubs hone their hunting skills. After their first year they become more independent and explore. At around two years old, they are capable of hunting on their own. The young suckle their mother as she is lying on her side or sitting on her rump. A lactating female cannot conceive and give birth, and cubs are weaned between two and two-and-a-half years. She may simply leave her weaned young or they may be chased away by a courting male. Polar bears reach sexual maturity at around four years for females and six years for males. Females reach their adult size at 4 or 5 years of age while males are fully grown at twice that age.
Mortality
Polar bears can live up to 30 years. The bear's long lifespan and ability to consistently produce young offsets cub deaths in a population. Some cubs die in the dens or the womb if the female is not in good condition. Nevertheless, the female has a chance to produce a surviving litter the next spring if she can eat better in the coming year. Cubs will eventually starve if their mothers cannot kill enough prey. Cubs also face threats from wolves and adult male bears. Males kill cubs to bring their mother back into estrus but also kill young outside the breeding season for food. A female and her cubs can flee from the slower male. If the male can get close to a cub, the mother may try to fight him off, sometimes at the cost of her life.
Subadult bears, who are independent but not quite mature, have a particularly rough time as they are not as successful hunters as adults. Even when they do succeed, their kill will likely be stolen by a larger bear. Hence subadults have to scavenge and are often underweight and at risk of starvation. At adulthood, polar bears have a high survival rate, though adult males suffer injuries from fights over mates. Polar bears are especially susceptible to Trichinella, a parasitic roundworm they contract through cannibalism.
Conservation status
In 2015, the IUCN Red List categorized the polar bear as vulnerable due to a "decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and/or quality of habitat". It estimated the total population to be between 22,000 and 31,000, and the current population trend is unknown. Threats to polar bear populations include climate change, pollution and energy development.
In 2021, the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group labelled four subpopulations (Barents and Chukchi Sea, Foxe Basin and Gulf of Boothia) as "likely stable", two (Kane Basin and M'Clintock Channel) as "likely increased" and three (Southern Beaufort Sea, Southern and Western Hudson Bay) as "likely decreased" over specific periods between the 1980s and 2010s. The remaining ten did not have enough data. A 2008 study predicted two-thirds of the world's polar bears may disappear by 2050, based on the reduction of sea ice, and only one population would likely survive in 50 years. A 2016 study projected a likely decline in polar bear numbers of more than 30 percent over three generations. The study concluded that declines of more than 50 percent are much less likely. A 2012 review suggested that polar bears may become regionally extinct in southern areas by 2050 if trends continue, leaving the Canadian Archipelago and northern Greenland as strongholds.
The key danger from climate change is malnutrition or starvation due to habitat loss. Polar bears hunt seals on the sea ice, and rising temperatures cause the ice to melt earlier in the year, driving the bears to shore before they have built sufficient fat reserves to survive the period of scarce food in the late summer and early fall. Thinner sea ice tends to break more easily, which makes it more difficult for polar bears to access seals. Insufficient nourishment leads to lower reproductive rates in adult females and lower survival rates in cubs and juvenile bears. Lack of access to seals also causes bears to find food on land which increases the risk of conflict with humans.
Reduction in sea ice cover also forces bears to swim longer distances, which further depletes their energy stores and occasionally leads to drowning. Increased ice mobility may result in less stable sites for dens or longer distances for mothers travelling to and from dens on land. Thawing of permafrost would lead to more fire-prone roofs for bears denning underground. Less snow may affect insulation while more rain could cause more cave-ins. The maximum corticosteroid-binding capacity of corticosteroid-binding globulin in polar bear serum correlates with stress in polar bears, and this has increased with climate warming. Disease-causing bacteria and parasites would flourish more readily in a warmer climate.
Oil and gas development also affects polar bear habitat. The Chukchi Sea Planning Area of northwestern Alaska, which has had many drilling leases, was found to be an important site for non-denning female bears. Oil spills are also a risk. A 2018 study found that ten percent or less of prime bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea is vulnerable to a potential spill, but a spill at full reach could impact nearly 40 percent of the polar bear population. Polar bears accumulate high levels of persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and chlorinated pesticides, due to their position at the top of the ecological pyramid. Many of these chemicals have been internationally banned due to the recognition of their harm to the environment. Traces of them have slowly dwindled in polar bears but persist and have even increased in some populations.
Polar bears receive some legal protection in all the countries they inhabit. The species has been labelled as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act since 2008, while the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada listed it as of 'Special concern' since 1991. In 1973, the Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was signed by all five nations with polar bear populations, Canada, Denmark (of which Greenland is an autonomous territory), Russia (then USSR), Norway and the US. This banned most harvesting of polar bears, allowed indigenous hunting using traditional methods, and promoted the preservation of bear habitat. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna lists the species under Appendix II, which allows regulated trade.
Relationship with humans
Polar bears have coexisted and interacted with circumpolar peoples for millennia. "White bears" are mentioned as commercial items in the Japanese book Nihon Shoki in the seventh century. It is not clear if these were polar bears or white-coloured brown bears. During the Middle Ages, Europeans considered white bears to be a novelty and were more familiar with brown- and black-coloured bears. The first known written account of the polar bear in its natural environment is found in the 13th-century anonymous Norwegian text Konungs skuggsjá, which mentions that "the white bear of Greenland wanders most of the time on the ice of the sea, hunting seals and whales and feeding on them" and says the bear is "as skillful a swimmer as any seal or whale".
Over the next centuries, several European explorers would mention polar bears and describe their habits. Such accounts became more accurate after the Enlightenment, and both living and dead specimens were brought back. Nevertheless, some fanciful reports continued, including the idea that polar bears cover their noses during hunts. A relatively accurate drawing of a polar bear is found in Henry Ellis's work A Voyage to Hudson's Bay (1748). Polar bears were formally classified as a species by Constantine Phipps after his 1773 voyage to the Arctic. Accompanying him was a young Horatio Nelson, who was said to have wanted to get a polar bear coat for his father but failed in his hunt. In his 1785 edition of Histoire Naturelle, Comte de Buffon mentions and depicts a "sea bear", clearly a polar bear, and "land bears", likely brown and black bears. This helped promote ideas about speciation. Buffon also mentioned a "white bear of the forest", possibly a Kermode bear.
Exploitation
Polar bears were hunted as early as 8,000 years ago, as indicated by archaeological remains at Zhokhov Island in the East Siberian Sea. The oldest graphic depiction of a polar bear shows it being hunted by a man with three dogs. This rock art was among several petroglyphs found at Pegtymel in Siberia and dates from the fifth to eighth centuries. Before access to firearms, native people used lances, bows and arrows and hunted in groups accompanied by dogs. Though hunting typically took place on foot, some people killed swimming bears from boats with a harpoon. Polar bears were sometimes killed in their dens. Killing a polar bear was considered a rite of passage for boys in some cultures. Native people respected the animal and hunts were subject to strict rituals. Bears were harvested for the fur, meat, fat, tendons, bones and teeth. The fur was worn and slept on, while the bones and teeth were made into tools. For the Netsilik, the individual who finally killed the bear had the right to its fur while the meat was passed to all in the party. Some people kept the cubs of slain bears.
Norsemen in Greenland traded polar bear furs in the Middle Ages. Russia traded polar bear products as early as 1556, with Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land being important commercial centres. Large-scale hunting of bears at Svalbard occurred since at least the 18th century, when no less than 150 bears were killed each year by Russian explorers. In the next century, more Norwegians were harvesting the bears on the island. From the 1870s to the 1970s, around 22,000 of the animals were hunted in total. Over 150,000 polar bears in total were either killed or captured in Russia and Svalbard, from the 18th to the 20th century. In the Canadian Arctic, bears were harvested by commercial whalers especially if they could not get enough whales. The Hudson's Bay Company is estimated to have sold 15,000 polar bear coats between the late 19th century and early 20th century. In the mid-20th century, countries began to regulate polar bear harvesting, culminating in the 1973 agreement.
Polar bear meat was commonly eaten as rations by explorers and sailors in the Arctic. Its taste and texture have been described both positively and negatively. Some have called it too coarse with a powerful smell, while others praised it as a "royal dish". The liver was known for being too toxic to eat. This is due to the accumulation of vitamin A from their prey. Polar bear fat was also used in lamps when other fuel was unavailable. Polar bear rugs were almost ubiquitous on the floors of Norwegian churches by the 13th and 14th centuries. In more modern times, classical Hollywood actors would pose on bearskin rugs, notably Marilyn Monroe. Such images often had sexual connotations.
Conflicts
Road sign warning about the presence of polar bears. The Norwegian text translates into "Applies to all of Svalbard".
When the sea ice melts, polar bears, particularly subadults, conflict with humans over resources on land. They are attracted to the smell of human-made foods, particularly at garbage dumps and may be shot when they encroach on private property. In Churchill, Manitoba, local authorities maintain a "polar bear jail" where nuisance bears are held until the sea ice freezes again. Climate change has increased conflicts between the two species. Over 50 polar bears swarmed a town in Novaya Zemlya in February 2019, leading local authorities to declare a state of emergency.
From 1870 to 2014, there were an estimated 73 polar bear attacks on humans, which led to 20 deaths. The majority of attacks were by hungry males, typically subadults, while female attacks were usually in defence of the young. In comparison to brown and American black bears, attacks by polar bears were more often near and around where humans lived. This may be due to the bears getting desperate for food and thus more likely to seek out human settlements. As with the other two bear species, polar bears are unlikely to target more than two people at once. Though popularly thought of as the most dangerous bear, the polar bear is no more aggressive to humans than other species.
Captivity
The polar bear was a particularly sought-after species for exotic animal collectors due to being relatively rare and remote living, and its reputation as a ferocious beast. It is one of the few marine mammals that can reproduce well in captivity. They were originally kept only by royals and elites. The Tower of London got a polar bear as early as 1252 under King Henry III. In 1609, James VI and I of Scotland, England and Ireland were given two polar bear cubs by the sailor Jonas Poole, who got them during a trip to Svalbard. At the end of the 17th century, Frederick I of Prussia housed polar bears in menageries with other wild animals. He had their claws and canines removed to perform mock fights. Around 1726, Catherine I of Russia gifted two polar bears to Augustus II the Strong of Poland, who desired them for his animal collection. Later, polar bears were displayed to the public in zoos and circuses. In early 19th century, the species was exhibited at the Exeter Exchange in London, as well as menageries in Vienna and Paris. The first zoo in North America to exhibit a polar bear was the Philadelphia Zoo in 1859.
Polar bear exhibits were innovated by Carl Hagenbeck, who replaced cages and pits with settings that mimicked the animal's natural environment. In 1907, he revealed a complex panoramic structure at the Tierpark Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg consisting of exhibits made of artificial snow and ice separated by moats. Different polar animals were displayed on each platform, giving the illusion of them living together. Starting in 1975, Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich housed its polar bears in an exhibit which consisted of a glass barrier, a house, concrete platforms mimicking ice floes and a large pool. Inside the house were maternity dens, and rooms for the staff to prepare and store the food. The exhibit was connected to an outdoor yard for extra room. Similar naturalistic and "immersive" exhibits were opened in the early 21st century, such as the "Arctic Ring of Life" at the Detroit Zoo and Ontario's Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat. Many zoos in Europe and North America have stopped keeping polar bears due to the size and costs of their complex exhibits. In North America, the population of polar bears in zoos reached its zenith in 1975 with 229 animals and declined in the 21st century.
Polar bears have been trained to perform in circuses. Bears in general, being large, powerful, easy to train and human-like in form, were widespread in circuses, and the white coat of polar bears made them particularly attractive. Circuses helped change the polar bear's image from a fearsome monster to something more comical. Performing polar bears were used in 1888 by Circus Krone in Germany and later in 1904 by the Bostock and Wombwell Menagerie in England. Circus director Wilhelm Hagenbeck trained up to 75 polar bears to slide into a large tank through a chute. He began performing with them in 1908 and they had a particularly well-received show at the Hippodrome in London. Other circus tricks performed by polar bears involved tightropes, balls, roller skates and motorcycles. One of the most famous polar bear trainers in the second half of the twentieth century was the East German Ursula Böttcher, whose small stature contrasted with that of the large bears. Starting in the late 20th century, most polar bear acts were retired and the use of these bears for the circus is now prohibited in the US.
Several captive polar bears gained celebrity status in the late 20th and early 21st century, notably Knut of the Berlin Zoological Garden, who was rejected by his mother and had to be hand-reared by zookeepers. Another bear, Binky of the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, became famous for attacking two visitors who got too close. Captive polar bears may pace back and forth, a stereotypical behaviour. In one study, they were recorded to have spent 14 percent of their days pacing. Gus of the Central Park Zoo was prescribed Prozac by a therapist for constantly swimming in his pool. To reduce stereotypical behaviours, zookeepers provide the bears with enrichment items to trigger their play behaviour. Zoo polar bears may appear green due to algae concentrations.
Cultural significance
Polar bears have prominent roles in Inuit culture and religion. The deity Torngarsuk is sometimes imagined as a giant polar bear. He resides underneath the sea floor in an underworld of the dead and has power over sea creatures. Kalaallit shamans would worship him through singing and dancing and were expected to be taken by him to the sea and consumed if he considered them worthy. Polar bears were also associated with the goddess Nuliajuk who was responsible for their creation, along with other sea creatures. It is believed that shamans could reach the Moon or the bottom of the ocean by riding on a guardian spirit in the form of a polar bear. Some folklore involves people turning into or disguising themselves as polar bears by donning their skins or the reverse, with polar bears removing their skins. In Inuit astronomy, the Pleiades star cluster is conceived of as a polar bear trapped by dogs while Orion's Belt, the Hyades and Aldebaran represent hunters, dogs and a wounded bear respectively.
Nordic folklore and literature have also featured polar bears. In The Tale of Auðun of the West Fjords, written around 1275, a poor man named Auðun spends all his money on a polar bear in Greenland, but ends up wealthy after giving the bear to the king of Denmark. In the 14th-century manuscript Hauksbók, a man named Odd kills and eats a polar bear that killed his father and brother. In the story of The Grimsey Man and the Bear, a mother bear nurses and rescues a farmer stuck on an ice floe and is repaid with sheep meat. 18th-century Icelandic writings mention the legend of a "polar bear king" known as the bjarndýrakóngur. This beast was depicted as a polar bear with "ruddy cheeks" and a unicorn-like horn, which glows in the dark. The king could understand when humans talk and was considered to be very astute. Two Norwegian fairy tales, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" and "White-Bear-King-Valemon", involve white bears turning into men and seducing women.
Drawings of polar bears have been featured on maps of the northern regions. Possibly the earliest depictions of a polar bear on a map is the Swedish Carta marina of 1539, which has a white bear on Iceland or "Islandia". A 1544 map of North America includes two polar bears near Quebec. Notable paintings featuring polar bears include François-Auguste Biard's Fighting Polar Bears (1839) and Edwin Landseer's Man Proposes, God Disposes (1864). Polar bears have also been filmed for cinema. An Inuit polar bear hunt was shot for the 1932 documentary Igloo, while the 1974 film The White Dawn filmed a simulated stabbing of a trained bear for a scene. In the film The Big Show (1961), two characters are killed by a circus polar bear. The scenes were shot using animal trainers instead of the actors. In modern literature, polar bears have been characters in both children's fiction, like Hans Beer's Little Polar Bear and the Whales and Sakiasi Qaunaq's The Orphan and the Polar Bear, and fantasy novels, like Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. In radio, Mel Blanc provided the vocals for Jack Benny's pet polar bear Carmichael on The Jack Benny Program. The polar bear is featured on flags and coats of arms, like the coat of arms of Greenland, and in many advertisements, notably for Coca-Cola since 1922.
As charismatic megafauna, polar bears have been used to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change. Aurora the polar bear is a giant marionette created by Greenpeace for climate protests. The World Wide Fund for Nature has sold plush polar bears as part of its "Arctic Home" campaign. Photographs of polar bears have been featured in National Geographic and Time magazines, including ones of them standing on ice floes, while the climate change documentary and advocacy film An Inconvenient Truth (2006) includes an animated bear swimming. Automobile manufacturer Nissan used a polar bear in one of its commercials, hugging a man for using an electric car. To make a statement about global warming, in 2009 a Copenhagen ice statue of a polar bear with a bronze skeleton was purposely left to melt in the sun.
Teeny tiny mushrooms on the end of a decaying log covered in moss...even a tiny little slug making its way; hallmarks of the West Coast environment.
Shoot date: October 31st 2011
Location: Limburg
Model & styling: Lieke K
Photography & PP: Karin E. Lips
Another digital preview from Monday's shoot with Lieke. (Flickr really did an oversharpening number on this one. Gah.)
Am trying to slowly get out of my comfort zone. Different editing, different compositions, direct sunlight, etc. I love this photo, but it also makes me uncomfortable in ways, haha. Because it's not my usual thing. But it could be a new thing ;) Who says I need only one style!
Getting my film developed today..
& a new computer is coming my way this week, I have had issues with my current computer for about a month now, so I haven't been working much on selfportraits and other projects.. Can finally get back to doing more.
© 2011 Karin E. Lips
I appreciate your comments and faves, so much, but please DON'T POST GROUP INVITES WITH OR WITHOUT IMAGES in my comments, I will delete them. No flickriver streams, either. #notyourstream
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What Drew me to this shot was how such a small body of water existed so close and yet so far from the endless ocean. Reminds me of evolution, where the few life forms in the pond eventually become a different species than those in the ocean. Maybe some little fish will grow legs and upload their own pictures in Flickr some day.
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Venus Shopping Complex, Tokyo, Japan
0.2mm pinhole; 35mm film; 10 mins
Aambyvalley rd., Upper Lonavala Maharashtra India.
a record monsoon for a extended period of time seems to have disturbed the rhythm of nature.
“Order is found in things working beneficially together. It is not the forced condition of neatness, tidiness, and straightness, all of which are, in design or energy terms, disordered. True order may lie in apparent confusion . ."
-Bill Mollison
The pinyon pine and juniper ecosystem of the interior is adapted to regular wildfires, so this is a common sight.
Bee Butts — Well, we may not "Break the Internet" with this one, but we like bee butts and we cannot lie!
This is the backend of a Lipotriches (Plain Sweat Bee) collected in Australia. This is one of the bees in which the males are known to form sleeping aggregations – small groups to dozens of individuals clustering together on the same twig late in the afternoon and remaining there until after dawn. There may be quite a lot of “jockeying for position” as males alight too close to another individual with low key aggressive interactions. Some clusters might contain more than one species. There has been little research on the reason for this aggregating behavior, although safety in numbers might play a role.
You can find more bees, all for public domain use, from our Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab at flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml.
Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah, United States. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 miles (6 km) north of Moab, Utah. More than 2,000 natural sandstone arches are located in the park, including the well-known Delicate Arch, as well as a variety of unique geological resources and formations. The park contains the highest density of natural arches in the world.
The park consists of 310.31 square kilometres (76,680 acres; 119.81 sq mi; 31,031 ha) of high desert located on the Colorado Plateau. The highest elevation in the park is 5,653 feet (1,723 m) at Elephant Butte, and the lowest elevation is 4,085 feet (1,245 m) at the visitor center. The park receives an average of less than 10 inches (250 mm) of rain annually.
Administered by the National Park Service, the area was originally named a national monument on April 12, 1929, and was re designated as a national park on November 12, 1971. The park received more than 1.6 million visitors in 2018.
As stated in the foundation document in U.S. National Park Service website:
The purpose of Arches National Park is to protect extraordinary examples of geologic features including arches, natural bridges, windows, spires, and balanced rocks, as well as other features of geologic, historic, and scientific interest, and to provide opportunities to experience these resources and their associated values in their majestic natural settings.
The national park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. This salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places and was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago (Mya) when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic (about 200 Mya), desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone (about 140 Mya), was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of younger sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation.
The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual "salt anticlines" or linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge. The result of one such 2,500-foot (760 m) displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center.
As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the younger rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the major formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, and the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone. These are visible in layer-cake fashion throughout most of the park. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches.
Although the park's terrain may appear rugged and durable, it is extremely fragile. More than 1 million visitors each year threaten the fragile high-desert ecosystem. The problem lies within the soil's crust, which is composed of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, and lichens that grow in the dusty parts of the park. Factors that make Arches National Park sensitive to visitor damage include being a semiarid region, the scarce, unpredictable rainfall, lack of deep freezing, and lack of plant litter, which results in soils that have both a low resistance to and slow recovery from, compressional forces such as foot traffic. Methods of indicating effects on the soil are cytophobic soil crust index, measuring of water infiltration, and t-tests that are used to compare the values from the undisturbed and disturbed areas.
Geological processes that occurred over 300 million years ago caused a salt bed to be deposited, which today lies beneath the landscape of Arches National Park.[ Over time, the salt bed was covered with sediments that eventually compressed into rock layers that have since been named Entrada Standstone. Rock layers surrounding the edge of the salt bed continued to erode and shift into vertical sandstone walls called fins. Sand collected between vertical walls of the fins, then slightly acidic rain combined with carbon dioxide in the air allowed for the chemical formation of carbonic acid within the trapped sand. Over time, the carbonic acid dissolved the calcium carbonate that held the sandstone together. Many of the rock formations have weaker layers of rock on bottom that are holding stronger layers on top. The weaker layers would dissolve first, creating openings in the rock. Gravity caused pieces of the stronger rock layer to fall piece by piece into an arch shape. Arches form within rock fins at points of intense fracturing localization, or weak points in the rock's formation, caused by horizontal and vertical discontinuities. Lastly, water, wind, and time continued this erosion process and ultimately created the arches of Arches National Park. All of the arches in the park are made of Entrada Sandstone, however, there are slight differences in how each arch was developed. This allows the Entrada Sandstone to be categories into 3 groups including Slick rock members, Dewey rock members, and Moab members. Vertical arches can be developed from Slick rock members, a combination of Slick rock members and Moab members, or Slick rock members resting above Dewey rock members. Horizontal arches (also called potholes) are formed when a vertical pothole formation meets a horizontal cave, causing a union into a long arch structure. The erosion process within Arches National Park will continue as time continues to pass. Continued erosion combined with vertical and horizontal stress will eventually cause arches to collapse, but still, new arches will continue to form for thousands of years.
Humans have occupied the region since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Fremont people and Ancestral Puebloans lived in the area until about 700 years ago. Spanish missionaries encountered Ute and Paiute tribes in the area when they first came through in 1775, but the first European-Americans to attempt settlement in the area were the Mormon Elk Mountain Mission in 1855, who soon abandoned the area. Ranchers, farmers, and prospectors later settled Moab in the neighboring Riverine Valley in the late 1870s. Word of the beauty of the surrounding rock formations spread beyond the settlement as a possible tourist destination.
The Arches area was first brought to the attention of the National Park Service by Frank A. Wadleigh, passenger traffic manager of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Wadleigh, accompanied by railroad photographer George L. Beam, visited the area in September 1923 at the invitation of Alexander Ringhoffer, a Hungarian-born prospector living in Salt Valley. Ringhoffer had written to the railroad to interest them in the tourist potential of a scenic area he had discovered the previous year with his two sons and a son-in-law, which he called the Devils Garden (known today as the Klondike Bluffs). Wadleigh was impressed by what Ringhoffer showed him, and suggested to Park Service director Stephen T. Mather that the area be made a national monument.
The following year, additional support for the monument idea came from Laurence Gould, a University of Michigan graduate student (and future polar explorer) studying the geology of the nearby La Sal Mountains, who was shown the scenic area by local physician Dr. J. W. "Doc" Williams.
A succession of government investigators examined the area, in part due to confusion as to the precise location. In the process, the name Devils Garden was transposed to an area on the opposite side of Salt Valley that includes Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the park. Ringhoffer's original discovery was omitted, while another area nearby, known locally as the Windows, was included. Designation of the area as a national monument was supported by the Park Service in 1926 but was resisted by President Calvin Coolidge's Interior Secretary, Hubert Work. Finally, in April 1929, shortly after his inauguration, President Herbert Hoover signed a presidential proclamation creating the Arches National Monument, consisting of two comparatively small, disconnected sections. The purpose of the reservation under the 1906 Antiquities Act was to protect the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and other sandstone formations for their scientific and educational value. The name Arches was suggested by Frank Pinkely, superintendent of the Park Service's southwestern national monuments, following a visit to the Windows section in 1925.
In late 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation that enlarged the Arches to protect additional scenic features and permit the development of facilities to promote tourism. A small adjustment was made by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 to accommodate a new road alignment.
In early 1969, just before leaving office, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation substantially enlarging the Arches. Two years later, President Richard Nixon signed legislation enacted by Congress, which significantly reduced the total area enclosed, but changed its status. Arches National Park was formally dedicated in May 1972.
In 1980, vandals attempted to use an abrasive kitchen cleanser to deface ancient petroglyphs in the park, prompting park officials to recruit physicist John F. Asmus, who specialized in using lasers to restore works of art, to use his technology to repair the damage. Asmus "zapped the panel with intense light pulses and succeeded in removing most of the cleanser".
Climbing Balanced Rock or any named or unnamed arch in Arches National Park with an opening larger than 3 ft (0.9 m) is banned by park regulations. Climbing on other features in the park is allowed but regulated; in addition, slacklining and BASE jumping are banned parkwide.
Climbing on named arches within the park had long been banned by park regulations, but following Dean Potter's successful free climb on Delicate Arch in May 2006, the wording of the regulations was deemed unenforceable by the park attorney. In response, the park revised its regulations later that month, eventually imposing the current ban on arch climbing in 2014.
Approved recreational activities include auto touring, hiking, bicycling, camping at the Devils Garden campground, backpacking, canyoneering, and rock climbing, with permits required for the last three activities. Guided commercial tours and ranger programs are also available.
Astronomy is also popular in the park due to its dark skies, despite the increasing light pollution from towns such as Moab.
Delicate Arch is the subject of the third 2014 quarter of the U.S. Mint's America the Beautiful Quarters program commemorating national parks and historic sites. The Arches quarter had the highest production of the five 2014 national park quarters, with more than 465 million minted.
American writer Edward Abbey was a park ranger at Arches National Monument in 1956 and 1957, where he kept journals that became his book Desert Solitaire. The success of Abbey's book, as well as interest in adventure travel, has drawn many hikers, mountain bikers, and off-pavement driving enthusiasts to the area. Permitted activities within the park include camping, hiking along designated trails, backpacking, canyoneering, rock climbing, bicycling, and driving along existing roads, both paved and unpaved. The Hayduke Trail, an 812 mi (1,307 km) backpacking route named after one of Edward Abbey's characters, begins in the park.
An abundance of wildlife occurs in Arches National Park, including spadefoot toads, antelope squirrels, scrub jays, peregrine falcons, many kinds of sparrows, red foxes, desert bighorn sheep, kangaroo rats, mule deers, cougars, midget faded rattlesnakes, yucca moths, western rattlesnakes, and collared lizards.
A number of plant species are common in the park, including prickly pear cactus, Indian ricegrass, bunch grasses, cheatgrass, moss, liverworts, Utah juniper, Mormon tea, blackbrush, cliffrose, four-winged saltbrush, pinyon pine, evening primrose, sand verbena, yucca, and sacred datura.
Biological soil crust consisting of cyanobacteria, lichen, mosses, green algae, and microfungi is found throughout southeastern Utah. The fibrous growths help keep soil particles together, creating a layer that is more resistant to erosion. The living soil layer readily absorbs and stores water, allowing more complex forms of plant life to grow in places with low precipitation levels.
Among the notable features of the park are the following:
Balanced Rock – a large balancing rock, the size of three school buses
Courthouse Towers – a collection of tall stone columns
Dark Angel – a free-standing 150 ft-tall (46 m) sandstone pillar at the end of the Devils Garden Trail
Delicate Arch – a lone-standing arch that has become a symbol of Utah and the most recognized arch in the park
Devils Garden – many arches and columns scattered along a ridge
Double Arch – two arches that share a common end
Fiery Furnace – an area of maze-like narrow passages and tall rock columns (see biblical reference, Book of Daniel, chapter 3)
Landscape Arch – a very thin and long arch in the Devils Garden with a span of 290 ft (88 m) (the longest arch in the park)
Petrified Dunes – petrified remnants of dunes blown from the ancient lakes that covered the area
The Phallus – a rock spire that resembles a phallus
Wall Arch – located along the popular Devils Garden Trail; collapsed sometime on August 4/5, 2008
The Three Gossips –a mid-sized sandstone tower located in the Courthouse Towers area.
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.
Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.
People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.
Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.
The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.
Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.
The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:
use of the bow and arrow while hunting,
building pithouse shelters,
growing maize and probably beans and squash,
building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,
creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,
producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.
The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.
These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.
In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.
In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.
Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.
At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.
The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.
A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.
Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.
Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.
Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.
Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.
The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.
Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.
Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.
In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.
The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.
Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.
After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.
As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.
Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.
Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.
Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.
Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.
On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.
Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century
During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.
The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.
Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:
William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859
Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866
3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868
A Black man in Uintah, 1869
Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873
Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874
Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880
William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883
John Murphy in Park City, 1883
George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884
Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886
Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925
Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).
Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.
Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.
During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.
In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.
Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.
Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.
As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.
One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.
It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.
Marine systems are the world’s oceans. For mapping purposes, the map shows ocean areas where the depth is greater than 50 meters. Global fishery catches from marine systems peaked in the late 1980s and are now declining despite increasing fishing effort.
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This photo has been graciously provided to be used in the GRID-Arendal resources library by: Philippe Rekacewicz, Emmanuelle Bournay, UNEP/GRID-Arendal