With climate change altering age-old migrations in Arctic Alaska, wildlife and subsistence whalers also must adjust. See stunning photos.
Off Alaska’s Arctic coast, subsistence hunter Charlie Bend Ahmaogak of the Hopson One whale crew waits in a traditional bearded seal skin umiak boat for migrating bowhead whales to travel through a newly opened passageway in the ice.
FOR THE PAST TWO DECADES, I’ve been on an extreme photographic journey on the Alaskan Arctic coast to document one of the greatest multispecies migrations and oldest subsistence wildlife harvests in the world—both having endured uninterrupted for thousands of years.
Each spring, scores of shorebird, seabird and mammal species—including bowhead and beluga whales, polar bears, seals and millions of eiders and other waterfowl—begin migrating hundreds to thousands of miles northeast from their winter habitat at the edge of the ice in the Bering Sea to as far as the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the Arctic Ocean.
As the animals pass by Indigenous Iñupiaq villages, subsistence whalers head out by boat to harpoon a small number of whales in a sustainable hunt for meat and other parts—from baleen and bones to skin and blubber (used together to make a traditional food called muktuk). By embedding myself with these crews, I’ve gained unprecedented access to the hunters, their remote environment and many of the wildlife species that participate in the migration.
From the beginning of my journey, I was certain of one of the images I most wanted to make: a bowhead whale—the species that takes the lead in the migration—signaling to other bowheads that a passageway in the ice had opened and that they could move northward through a new watery trail (known as a lead) forming across the sea ice.
I finally captured that shot in April 2023. (See first image in slideshow below.) Following Iñupiaq whaling captain Russell Lane, we came upon a large group of bowhead whales at the edge of the ice, approximately 8 miles due west of the Iñupiaq village of Tikiġaq (Point Hope), Alaska, the oldest continuous human settlement in North America. As a lead through the ice began to open, one whale started signaling to the others by breaching, slapping its tail and flippers on the water’s surface, rolling, swimming quickly around the large hole and producing loud sounds audible underwater. Hundreds of whales soon followed the leader through the passage, heading in a northward direction that would take them around the northwestern corner of the continent and past Cape Lisburne into their food-rich summer feeding grounds.
Shooting at temperatures below 20 degrees F from moving ice, I faced challenges capturing the signaling bowhead. Crew members were accustomed to the conditions. The Iñupiat are a strong, resilient and adaptable people. But they face unprecedented changes today, as the Arctic warms nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet. In the past few decades, the Iñupiat have seen climate-related disruptions to sea ice conditions. Not long ago, they often hunted off ice fastened to the ocean floor but now must hunt on more dangerous ice that is not connected to the sea bottom.
The animals they hunt also face new challenges. As the Arctic warms, the timing of the bowhead whale’s migration is shifting—earlier in spring and later in fall—with some whales staying in summer habitat all winter. Less sea ice and more open water also may expose whales to ship collisions, as fishing, cargo transport and other human activities increase. While bowheads rebounded from near extinction after commercial whaling was banned in the 1980s, such impacts of climate change—as well as other threats, including oil extraction and plastic pollution—make the future uncertain. The endangered whales, along with the people who depend on them, are truly on the front lines of a far-too-rapidly changing world. See more images of Alaska’s Arctic wildlife and the Iñupiat in the slideshow below.
It took Steven Kazlowski 18 years traveling the sea ice with Iñupiaq whalers to get this prized shot: a bowhead whale signaling to other whales that a passageway in the ice was opening, and they could continue their migration north from the Bering to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
Members of the Quvan whale crew scout for bowhead whales off the coast of Alaska as a flock of king eiders flies overhead. The bowheads’ migration to the Chukchi and Beaufort seas coincides with the Iñupiat’s annual subsistence hunt for the animals.
In addition to bowhead whales, many other wildlife species make the migration, including eiders, beluga whales, seals and polar bears. Kazlowski photographed this polar bear mother and cub on an ice floe offshore during the summer.
While lying on his belly, Kazlowski photographed these two adult Arctic foxes as they ventured onto newly frozen ice to search for food on the Beaufort Sea. Arctic foxes often follow polar bears across the ice to scavenge any remains from the bears’ kill.
At Nalukataq Festival following the bowhead whale hunt, a woman bounces up and down on a bearded seal skin, throwing candy while people around the edge act as trampoline springs. The annual festival in Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska, continues for days as food from the hunt is shared.
An aerial view of Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska, the northernmost community in the United States, during late winter. Lying just above sea level, Utqiagvik is vulnerable to—and already feeling the effects of—climate change.
An aerial image of a pod of beluga whales navigating a tight passage through the ice during their spring migration. The animals are heading to their summer feeding grounds off the coast of Tikiġaq (Point Hope), in the Chukchi Sea.
With climate change representing the greatest threat to wildlife, wild places and communities in the Arctic and beyond, the National Wildlife Federation and its partners are working with other environmental groups, Indigenous Peoples and state and federal governments to help cut carbon pollution and transition to a cleaner-energy economy. Learn more.
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