ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The surface area of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean shrank this winter to one of its lowest levels in decades — more bad news for polar bears, which depend on the ice to survive.
Since the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., began tracking sea ice three decades ago, only in 2006 was there as little ice during a Northern Hemisphere winter — 5.65 million square miles.
That’s nearly 8 percent less than the average of 6.12 million square miles recorded from 1979 to 2000.
The expanse of polar ice reached its maximum on March 7, according to the center. The date of maximum ice in the studies has ranged from Feb. 18 to March 31. As of March 22, the ice had declined for five consecutive days, leading scientists to conclude it will only shrink further. However, scientists noted, sea ice responds rapidly to winds and temperature this time of year and could expand again.
Steven Armstrup, senior scientist for the nonprofit Polar Bears International, said that 2010 was one of the warmest years on record and that last autumn’s ocean circulation patterns led to late and weak ice formation throughout much of the Arctic.
Autopsy: Dog bites killed NM man attacked by pack
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bites from a relentless pack of dogs killed a 55-year-old man with a history of seizures who was found lying unconscious along the side of a road while the animals mauled him, a medical examiner’s report said.
McKinley County deputies had to chase the dogs away so emergency medical technicians could help Larry Armstrong, who was found lying on the ground Dec. 8 in the small community of Sundance, on Navajo Nation land near Gallup.
“The dogs tried to come back, so we had to use pepper spray to keep them away while the EMTs attended to the victim,” sheriff’s Lt. Tom Mumford told KOAT television in December. “The dogs, they were downright angry. You could see their ribs sticking out.”
Armstrong later was pronounced dead at a hospital. The state Office of the Medical Investigator found multiple puncture wounds, tears and scrapes on his head, neck, abdomen, arms and legs.
NY woman gets two years in child, pet abuse case
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A judge who lamented he could not legally impose a stiffer sentence gave the maximum two-year jail term Wednesday to a woman who abused her seven children and tortured and killed dozens of family pets, sometimes in the presence of the children, burying animal carcasses in her suburban Long Island backyard.
Sharon McDonough, 44, pleaded guilty last month to animal abuse and child endangerment charges after authorities said she created what her son called “a concentration camp for the animals” in her Selden, N.Y., home. It was that adult son, Douglas McDonough, who turned in his mother to authorities in 2009.
Neither he nor his six younger sisters attended the sentencing in Suffolk County Court, but Assistant District Attorney John Cortes read a presentencing letter that Douglas McDonough sent to the judge. The girls, all younger than 13 when their mother was arrested, are now in foster care.
“As one who has witnessed his ‘mother’ choke the life out of a living animal and physically and emotionally abuse and destroy her own children, I know what she is capable of doing,” said McDonough’s letter, a copy of which prosecutors provided to reporters after the proceeding. “I fear for my well-being, my sisters and my 6-month old child. She has already destroyed us to a certain point.”
Suffolk County Court Judge C. Randall Hinrichs issued a permanent order of protection, requiring McDonough to stay away from her children when she is released.
– from wire service reports