WWF has mapped many of these routes, which it refers to as Arctic “blue corridors,” and shared them with IMO to help guide ship operators. Existing IMO guidelines already tell sailors to take special care around sensitive habitats, including migration routes, but conservation groups say greater awareness is needed about where and when whales are likely to be present so companies and captains can plan accordingly.
when the narwhals become silent
If concrete measures are not adopted to limit the impacts of ship traffic, underwater noise will continue to harm whales, as well as other marine life, including fish and crustaceans, Lancaster said. Indigenous communities that depend on these marine ecosystems for food security may also be harmed.
For example, Inuit communities in Canada and Greenland have hunted narwhals for generations to help sustain families during long winters and cope with the high costs of living in the area, according to Alex Otuwaak, an Inuk hunter who recently helped lead a multi-year study of narwhals’ responses to shipping traffic in Eclipse Sound. It is an extremely important summer breeding site for a specific population of narwhal in Nunavut, Canada.
The study, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Canadian marine conservation non-profit Oceans North, found that narwhals fell silent when ships passed by.
“These animals are hearing and responding to ships from much greater distances than we predicted,” said Joshua Jones, one of the study’s authors. “We discovered that narwhals calm down or move away when a ship is within about 20 kilometers of the site.” He also stopped eating.
“They stop diving deep to the bottom to feed during ship transit,” Ootuwak said.
In Eclipse Sound, most of the ship traffic is driven by industrial shipping associated with the Mary River Mine, a large iron ore operation on Baffin Island operated by Baffinland Iron Mines Corp., Ootuwak said. The number of tourist vessels visiting the area, such as cruise ships, private yachts, sailboats and speed boats, is also increasing.
“Now we’re getting about 30 cruise ships per year,” Ootuwak said. “Our water is much faster than it traditionally has been.”
With so much traffic and noise, Otuwak said he worries that narwhals are leaving their traditional breeding grounds for quieter waters. Neighboring communities in Greenland are already reporting what they describe as “alien narwhals” appearing in their waters — animals, Otuvaak said, that match the behavior and appearance of the people from Eclipse Sound.
Teresa Tomasoni is an environmental journalist covering the intersections between oceans, climate change, coastal communities and wildlife for Inside Climate News. His previous work has appeared in The Washington Post, NPR, NBC Latino, and Smithsonian American Indian Magazine. Teresa holds a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. She is also a recipient of the Stone & Holt Weeks Social Justice Reporting Fellowship. He taught journalism at Long Island University and the School of the New York Times. She is an avid scuba diver and spends most of her free time underwater.
This story was originally published on Inside Climate News.
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