The Birdman of Cooper Island has nerves of steel.
For five decades Seattle-based George Divoky, 78, has completed an annual solo pilgrimage to a hostile island off the coast of Alaska to study his beloved seabirds.
There on Cooper Island he has witnessed first hand climate change in action, with the melting sear ice radically altering the arctic landscape and, in turn, the habits of native wildlife.
Most devastatingly for Divoky, it has led to a new threat: the polar bear.
These dangerous beasts increasingly been forced to search for food on land, which this has resulted in the massacre of the colony of black guillemot birds he has dedicated his life to studying, Anchorage Daily News reported.
The growing bear invasion has also put his life in danger, with Divoky forced to set up trip wires to deter them, employ motion detectors for warning and always keep his shotgun within reach.
George Divoky, a 78-year-old ornithologist, has spent five decades studying black guillemots on Cooper Island, Alaska
As sea ice melts and polar bears search for food, the guillemot colony has been decimated by polar bears
Divoky, a seasoned ornithologist, has been monitoring the black guillemot birds on remote Cooper Island in Alaska’s Arctic since 1972.
His research on the island has documented how the warming climate has affected the birds’ breeding patterns and survival.
The colony, once thriving with 200 nests and 600 birds, now has only a few dozen left. Divoky’s observations provide one of the longest-running records of climate change’s impact on wildlife.
The polar bears, which Divoky said started coming to the island in 2002, are stranded onshore more frequently as the sea ice they rely on for hunting seals continues to shrink. Their hunger has driven them to Cooper Island, where they have become more adept at raiding the guillemot nests.
In August, Divoky, 78, saw three bears — a mother and her two cubs — had flipped his carefully placed plastic nesting boxes which he had set up to help protect them.
After firing warning shots to scare the bears away, Divoky surveyed the horrific damage. Half the nests were destroyed, and many birds had died.
‘I’ve experienced this thing, and it was very unique. And I wish I hadn’t,’ Divoky told Anchorage Daily News. ‘You could not look away from the train wreck.’
Divoky’s once bustling colony has now been devastated by the combined pressures of receding sea ice, shifting prey populations and now, the bears.
‘I don’t want them [the bears] in theory to be here. But what am I? To the extent that apparently fewer and fewer people care what I do, or why I do it, or how I do it,’ he said.
He continued: ‘Yes, we did put up bear-proof cases to keep the colony going, but it makes no sense to have a bear patrol that tries to stop any bear disturbance now, when bears on-shore are inevitable every year.’
The black guillemots, which spend most of their lives at sea, depend on sea ice to feed on Arctic cod. But the ice has been retreating earlier and farther each year.
Divoky, once an advocate for the birds, has now shifted his focus to understanding and accepting the changing Arctic landscape
Divoky had created the boxes by cutting holes in hard-shelled plastic suitcases, which had previously protected the birds from bears. But they have worked out how to infiltrate then
The longer ice-free summers initially helped the birds, allowing them more time to breed. But as the ice has vanished, their food supply has dwindled, and the colony’s numbers have steadily declined.
Divoky’s 50th field season, which could be his last extended stay, has been marked by significant losses.
‘It’s a climate change signal,’ he told Anchorage Daily News.
‘Possibly one of the least important in terms of the whole global climate change, but it’s one that we know the arc of, from ’72, when this colony was nothing, to ’89, when it was the biggest colony in Alaska, to 2024, when the birds that were still left here, the two dozen pairs, couldn’t raise young because of polar bears, because of sea ice melt,’ he continued.
‘And now I’m on the polar bears’ side. I’ve become a polar bear advocate. I’m saying I want these polar bears to do well. They’re not going to have the ice much longer. Use the island any way you can, for resting or whatever’.
‘But you’re not going to get any guillemots here in the future. And you’ll be able to roam more freely because I won’t be here much at all,’ he added.
Pictured: The plywood shack Divoky conducts his research in on Cooper Island
Despite the grim outlook, he continues to be drawn to the island and the birds he has studied for so long
Despite his grim outlook, Divoky remains connected to the birds he has studied for half a century. Some have lived more than 25 years, and he knows them by the colored bands he placed on their legs as fledglings. But with more bears raiding nests and no sea ice in sight, the future of the colony looks bleak.
As he packed up his camp, Divoky reflected on the changing arctic landscape and the grim reality facing both the guillemots and the polar bears.
‘One of the important things in life is knowing when to leave,’ he said. ‘It’s kind of like the logical, if you will, ending.’
Yet, Divoky may not be ready to close this chapter entirely. As he returned to Seattle, Washington, he began planning a trip back to Cooper Island next year.
Despite the outcome of this year’s trip, he still wants to see what happens next.