Posted on 19 October
2011
Canada - WWF is supporting a new project
to track narwhals,
Arctic whales best known for the long tusk
that projects forward from their faces.
The project partners
fitted the little-researched whales with
satellite tracking devices. WWF is also
launching a web page to showcase the partners’
fieldwork and research, with maps and information
about the latest movements of the narwhals
as they move around Baffin Bay in Canada’s
Nunavut territory.
Pete Ewins, Arctic species specialist for
WWF-Canada, said that it is expected the
project will contribute fascinating information
about the habits of narwhals.
“We’re supporting this project because it
is a chance to better understand these animals
while their world changes around them. We
know Narwhals are often associated with
sea ice, and we know the sea ice is shrinking.
WWF is trying to understand how narwhals,
as well as all other ice associated animals
in the arctic can adapt to a changing environment.
We can put this knowledge together with
existing Inuit knowledge, and we can work
with Inuit and other stakeholders to help
the animals survive the coming changes.”
Tracking the Monodon monoceros
The composite maps displayed on the WWF
narwhal tracking page show the total paths
taken to date by the whales being tracked
(most of whom were adult females). Having
spent much of the past 10-12 weeks in the
fjords and inlets around northern Baffin
Island, often probably heading well up these
long inlets to escape the increasing number
of killer whales now summering in these
waters, these narwhals are starting to move
out of the area.
Although rapid changes
in climatic conditions have been making
it increasingly difficult to predict the
timing of sea-ice formation in the fall,
it is likely that in the next couple of
weeks sea-ice will start appearing along
the coast and in shallow waters. As temperatures
drop regularly well below zero, so the narwhals
will steadily move eastwards and into deeper
water.
WWF is glad to be able to provide support
to this project partnership of the local
Inuit community of Pond Inlet, the Nunavut
Wildlife Management Board, the Canadian
Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans
(DFO), the Narwhal Tusk Research project
centred at Harvard University, the Vancouver
Aquarium and the Calgary Zoo.
