As national security and the hunt for rare minerals come to dominate Arctic agendas, governments are slashing support for wildlife research. Scientists say the loss of monitoring is unprecedented and comes as climate change dramatically reshapes life in the Far North.

Decades ago, one of the world’s largest subpopulations of nesting eider ducks spent its summers on tiny Mitivik Island, near the mouth of Hudson Bay. But as concern grew, in the 1990s, over their steep decline globally, the Canadian government set up a rudimentary research station near the island in the hopes of forestalling a collapse.

The modest investment paid enormous dividends over the next 30 years as Inuit partners from nearby Southampton Island, who hunt common and king eiders for food and feathers, worked with scientists from all over the world to solve the mystery of where the birds spent their winters and the causes of, and remedy for, their initial decline.…