WILL OTTAWA SAVE THE KILLER WHALES?
Ottawa hasn’t decided if it will bring in icebreaker
Orcas reach for a gulp of air while stranded in ice in Hudson Bay, near Inukjuak. The killer whales are among a dozen that became stranded Monday off the coast of northern Quebec. The animals, trapped about 25 km from open water, have been taking turns surfacing for air. While their situation is desperate, the federal government has no immediate plans for a rescue effort.
Twelve whales are caught in a death trap outside of a northern Quebec fishing village.
Since Monday, the killer whales have been stranded under thick layers of sea ice near the town of Inukjuak, on the eastern coast of Hudson Bay. They take turns breathing through a small breach in the ice, but one expert says that if immediate action isn’t taken to free them, the whales could suffocate or die from exhaustion.
“These are large animals competing for breathing space in a hole not much larger than your desk,” said Lyne Morisette, a marine ecologist and researcher at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. “We don’t have two weeks to manoeuvre here.”
About 25 kilometres of ice separates the pod from open water, meaning it would take an icebreaking ship to open a path for them.
An Inuit hunter stumbled upon the whales, also known as orcas, this week while tracking seals. Killer whales are a rare sight in Hudson Bay during winter, and the animals have drawn dozens of curious locals from Inukjuak — a one-hour snowmobile ride f rom the ice breach.
“People have mixed feelings about the situation,” Peter Inukpuk, the mayor of Inukjuak, said. “We want to see them free, but we also want them to go away. Killer whales eat seals and belugas. The seal hunt is a huge part of our economy.”
Inukpuk has been in contact with Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but a department spokeswoman wouldn’t say if an icebreaker will be chartered to free the captive animals. DFO researchers are consulting with scientists in northern Quebec to decide on the best course of action.
“It’s too early to start running through options, but we’re keeping an eye on the situation,” said Sylvie Racine, a spokeswoman for the DFO. “We’re definitely concerned and we’re still deciding what we’ll do.”
An icebreaker could cost the federal government millions of dollars, and there’s no guarantee the ship would arrive in time to save the killer whales. But local leaders are urging the federal government to take action and help free the whales immediately.
“It would be utopian to assume the DFO is scrambling to get an icebreaking ship on site,” Morisette said. “The government has cut funding to DFO just as they have with dozens of federal departments, so it’s tough to see them freeing up money for this. However, the fact the killer whales are an endangered species definitely helps their case.”
It’s unclear whether the pod migrated north from Canada’s West Coast, where the species is most common, or whether they came from the Atlantic coast. The whales likely swam to the breach when there was an opening in the thick layer of ice that covers much of Canada’s northern shoreline.
“The ice probably began to close behind the whales as they moved inward,” Moris- ette said. “Now they’re stuck. As sad as this situation is, it pales in comparison to the challenges the species faces with the rise of global warming.”
With ice melting and shifting in Canada’s Arctic, traditional migration patterns are drastically changing for marine life. Migration is further complicated by the fact that less ice has made it easier for cargo ships to navigate the Arctic Ocean.
“More shipping means more collisions between vessels and whales, it means more pollution in their environment and it ultimately puts the entire ecosystem at risk,” Morisette said. “Global warming is having a profoundly negative effect on marine life in the Arctic.”
The trapped animals made waves on social media Wednesday after pictures and videos of the orcas were posted on Twitter and Facebook. In the nearby town of Inukjuak, where about 1,500 people live, it’s been hard to talk of much else these past few days.
“Plenty of people are headed out there, they’re worried and they don’t know why we’re seeing this kind of thing in the winter,” Inukpuk said. “It’s not normal.”
Although the species are a rare sight in the North during winter, Morisette said it’s hard to determine if incidents like the one in Inukjuak are increasing.
“It used to be you needed a camera crew to film one of these incidents and broadcast it to the world for it to garner public attention,” she said. “But as we saw on Wednesday, someone just shot video with their cellphone and posted it online. Plenty of incidents like this have happened in the past without anyone ever finding out, but that’s changed with technology.”