keep ‘If we can’t polar bears in the Canadian High Arctic and northern Greenland, we are not going to have in the wild.’ them
At least killer whales in the Arctic are unlikely to eat polar bears’ lunch. Inuit hunters have seen the whales hunting seals, but there are more than enough seals to go around, says Paul Irngaut, director of wildlife and environment for Iqaluitbased Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., an organization that represents the native treaty rights of the Inuit of Nunavut. Ferguson, Thiemann and Derocher all agree. Besides, they point out, orcas hunt during open-water months, high-tailing it out of the Arctic before the ice returns and polar bears begin their hunting season. For the short term, the whales may even be a boon for polar bears. Orcas are messy eaters, leaving behind large chunks of carcass after a kill. Polar bears have been seen feasting on the The polar bear ( above) faces an uncertain future in a warming Arctic, where it hunts seals from ice platforms. One scientist says he’s never seen a polar bear successfully hunt seals in open water.
remains that wash ashore. That’s not to say killer whale appetites won’t have an impact on the Arctic ecosystem. University of Manitoba PHD student Cory Matthews analyzed stable nitrogen isotopes from the teeth of two killer whales found dead in Hudson Bay. His results suggest they are eating belugas, bowheads and narwhals. A new predator — and one that is especially skilled — may leave its mark on these already threatened species. Belugas in eastern Hudson Bay and nearby Ungava Bay are classified as endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. The local bowhead population has recovered well from commercial whaling, but it’s listed by COSEWIC as “special concern,” meaning it’s not in imminent danger but could be if circumstances change. Narwhals are also considered to be of special concern. While all three species know a predator when they see it, they have little practice in evading one that moves fast and hunts in pods. Killer whales’ preferred technique is ramming prey from below, but they’re highly adaptable. They have been observed covering bowhead blowholes and keeping mothers down long enough to take their calves. They’ve also been seen biting off tails and fins before going in for the lethal blow.
Under normal circumstances, belugas, bowheads and narwhals take refuge in sea ice. But circumstances are not normal in the Arctic, and their hiding places are fast disappearing. When ice is not available, they head for shallow water, perhaps hoping the fear of beaching will dissuade orcas from following. While Ferguson can’t predict what impact killer whales will have on any one of these whale species, that doesn’t stop him from worrying: “I think they are going to be in trouble,” he says. “We want to monitor this carefully.” Ferguson also worries what fewer belugas, bowheads and narwhals could mean for the subsistence hunt in Inuit communities. While nobody is getting rich hunting these whales, they are an important part of Inuit culture. That includes the sense of community that comes from hunting together and sharing the kill. The whales’ blubber and skin are also significant sources of nutrients that are otherwise hard to come by in the Arctic. They
contain high levels of retinol (a form of vitamin A), vitamin B, vitamin C, polyunsaturated fats and protein. Plus, the whales’ muscle is high in iron and zinc. While technically Inuit could substitute with orca blubber, people know what they like to eat, and it’s not killer whales. “We’d rather taste narwhal,” says Arctic Bay’s Attitaq. Besides, he says, “killer whales are good hunters. They will never forget who made the bad choice to harm them and they’ll come back to harm you. So we don’t hunt them.” For now, anyway, Attitaq doesn’t believe the traditional hunt is threatened by killer whales. In fact, the opposite may be true. Killer whales tend to herd their prey to shallow water, where Inuit hunters can more easily make a kill. Certainly the killer whales swimming around Remi Foubert-allen’s Zodiac near Churchill were having exactly that effect on the belugas. Their smooth white bodies could be seen plainly beneath the surface as they crowded close to shore. Maybe the orcas weren’t hungry, or maybe they were distracted by the boatload of enthralled tourists bouncing across the waves. Whatever the case, on that day at least, no one witnessed a demonstration of the animal’s potential as the North’s new top predator. Yet as Ferguson points out, the Arctic is changing fast, and we need to pay close attention to what is going on there. “The better predictions we have about how things are going to unfold in the near future, the better we can prepare for changes.”