Bowhead Whale aka: Greenland Right Whale (Inuktitut: Arviq), Cape Mercy, Nunavut, Canada

Bowhead whales can live for over 150-200 years, making them the longest-lived wild mammals on the planet.

www.wwf.ca/conservation/arctic/wildlife/bowhead_whale/

Giants of the Arctic
One of just three year-round native Arctic whale species, bowheads (Balaena mysticetus) are famous for their massive bow-shaped heads, designed perfectly for one of their main challenges: getting through thick sea ice to breathe. Bowheads are able to use their large reinforced skulls and powerful bodies to break through ice 20 cm thick. Inuit hunters in Alaska have reported whales surfacing through 60 cm of ice. Their heads make up about a third of the total length (which in adults can be up to 20 metres – newborn calves are about 4 metres long and weigh 2-3 tonnes).

They are also known in quiet Arctic waters for their intense bouts of social group interactions, involving tail and flipper slapping, and breaching (leaping entirely out of the water) – an impressive feat for whales that weigh up to 100 tonnes!

When migrating they swim, not surprisingly, rather slowly, at 3-5 kilometres per hour.

Still recovering from severe over-hunting that started as early as the 16th century and ended only when populations crashed to near extinction, there are estimated to be about 20,000 bowhead whales currently, spread across 3 distinct geographic regions, with 90% of these summering in Canadian waters. In 2009, Canada created the world’s first bowhead whale sanctuary in Nunavut, the Ninginganiq National Wildlife Area. Learn more about how WWF helped build the scientific case for creating this designation.

Why is the bowhead important?
Whales are close to the top of the food chain and important indicators of the overall health of the marine environment. The bowhead whale’s conservation status is listed as “least concern” overall, but some populations (such as the East Greenland-Svalbard population) are “endangered”. They have traditionally been hunted by commercial whalers until the last century for oil, meat, and baleen. Today, a few native communities in Canada, Alaska, and Greenland hunt bowheads for subsistence purposes. This subsistence whaling is approved and its sustainability is ensured under the regulatory watch of regional co-management bodies and the International Whaling Commission.

Life under the ice
Like the other ice whales (narwhal and beluga), bowheads have no dorsal fin, enabling them to move easily under the sea ice. They typically spend the entire year in Arctic waters, their travels shaped by the melting and freezing of the ice, and seasonal movements to a series of predictable spring-summer productive feeding areas. They have a very thick layer of blubber (up to 40-50 cm), which serves primarily as an energy store to see them through the annual cycle. Bowheads can dive for over 30 minutes at a time.

What do bowheads eat?
Bowheads are baleen whales, with about 250-350 keritanous baleen plates on each side of the upper jaw. They use these massive vertical plates – up to 4.6m long in fully-grown individuals, the largest of any whale – to filter their food from the huge open-mouth gulps of water that they take. They need to eat about 100 tonnes of food annually, mainly tiny crustacean zooplankton. Most of their annual feeding occurs in the summer months, and much of that in Canadian waters.

A tragic history
The bowhead whale has been a victim of the appeal of its long baleen plates and thick blubber, which have made it, and its closest relative the right whale (Eubalaena glacialis and japonica), the most economically valuable whales.

Hunted by commercial whalers until the last century for whale oil and baleen, bowhead whales are today still recovering slowly from their economic extinction. Some populations are faring better as a result, but it will take many more decades for this long-lived and slow reproducing species to recover to its pre-whaling numbers. Inuit in Canada, Greenland and Alaska are allowed a limited subsistence hunt for bowhead whales, sustaining important cultural traditions and values.

Modern threats include sea ice retreat and changes to food web dynamics due to rapid climate changeand ocean acidification. Bowheads are also affected by direct and indirect impacts of increased development such as oil and gas exploration, commercial shipping, and fishing. What would an oil spill in Canada's Beaufort Sea look like for bowheads and their ecosystem? Explore WWF's oil spill trajectory modeling project at arcticspills.wwf.ca to find out.

Bowheads on the move
The Canadian and Alaskan governments have attached satellite radio transmitters to a sample of bowhead whales, in order to better understand seasonal movements and habitat use of these Arctic giants.

This information can be used to identify and protect the most important areas used by these whales, and to help plan for further human activities (like shipping and development) in these sensitive, quiet arctic waters – the bowheads’ home – and in all decisions regarding the future of Arctic marine systems facing rapid climate and economic change.

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Cape Mercy, Nunavut, Canada

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale

The Beaufort Wind Force Scale is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land.

The scale was devised in 1805 by the Irish hydrographer Francis Beaufort (later Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort), a Royal Navy officer, while serving on HMS Woolwich. The scale that carries Beaufort's name had a long and complex evolution from the previous work of others (including Daniel Defoe the century before) to when Beaufort was Hydrographer of the Navy in the 1830s when it was adopted officially and first used during the voyage of HMS Beagle under Captain Robert FitzRoy, later to set up the first Meteorological Office (Met Office) in Britain giving regular weather forecasts.In the early 19th century, naval officers made regular weather observations, but there was no standard scale and so they could be very subjective – one man's "stiff breeze" might be another's "soft breeze". Beaufort succeeded in standardising the scale.

Today, many countries have abandoned the scale and use the metric system based units, m/s or km/h, instead, but the severe weather warnings given to the public are still approximately the same as when using the Beaufort scale.

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Cape Mercy, Nunavut, Canada

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Bowhead Whale aka: Greenland Right Whale (Inuktitut: Arviq), Cape Mercy, Nunavut, Canada

Bowhead whales can live for over 150-200 years, making them the longest-lived wild mammals on the planet.

www.wwf.ca/conservation/arctic/wildlife/bowhead_whale/

Giants of the Arctic
One of just three year-round native Arctic whale species, bowheads (Balaena mysticetus) are famous for their massive bow-shaped heads, designed perfectly for one of their main challenges: getting through thick sea ice to breathe. Bowheads are able to use their large reinforced skulls and powerful bodies to break through ice 20 cm thick. Inuit hunters in Alaska have reported whales surfacing through 60 cm of ice. Their heads make up about a third of the total length (which in adults can be up to 20 metres – newborn calves are about 4 metres long and weigh 2-3 tonnes).

They are also known in quiet Arctic waters for their intense bouts of social group interactions, involving tail and flipper slapping, and breaching (leaping entirely out of the water) – an impressive feat for whales that weigh up to 100 tonnes!

When migrating they swim, not surprisingly, rather slowly, at 3-5 kilometres per hour.

Still recovering from severe over-hunting that started as early as the 16th century and ended only when populations crashed to near extinction, there are estimated to be about 20,000 bowhead whales currently, spread across 3 distinct geographic regions, with 90% of these summering in Canadian waters. In 2009, Canada created the world’s first bowhead whale sanctuary in Nunavut, the Ninginganiq National Wildlife Area. Learn more about how WWF helped build the scientific case for creating this designation.

Why is the bowhead important?
Whales are close to the top of the food chain and important indicators of the overall health of the marine environment. The bowhead whale’s conservation status is listed as “least concern” overall, but some populations (such as the East Greenland-Svalbard population) are “endangered”. They have traditionally been hunted by commercial whalers until the last century for oil, meat, and baleen. Today, a few native communities in Canada, Alaska, and Greenland hunt bowheads for subsistence purposes. This subsistence whaling is approved and its sustainability is ensured under the regulatory watch of regional co-management bodies and the International Whaling Commission.

Life under the ice
Like the other ice whales (narwhal and beluga), bowheads have no dorsal fin, enabling them to move easily under the sea ice. They typically spend the entire year in Arctic waters, their travels shaped by the melting and freezing of the ice, and seasonal movements to a series of predictable spring-summer productive feeding areas. They have a very thick layer of blubber (up to 40-50 cm), which serves primarily as an energy store to see them through the annual cycle. Bowheads can dive for over 30 minutes at a time.

What do bowheads eat?
Bowheads are baleen whales, with about 250-350 keritanous baleen plates on each side of the upper jaw. They use these massive vertical plates – up to 4.6m long in fully-grown individuals, the largest of any whale – to filter their food from the huge open-mouth gulps of water that they take. They need to eat about 100 tonnes of food annually, mainly tiny crustacean zooplankton. Most of their annual feeding occurs in the summer months, and much of that in Canadian waters.

A tragic history
The bowhead whale has been a victim of the appeal of its long baleen plates and thick blubber, which have made it, and its closest relative the right whale (Eubalaena glacialis and japonica), the most economically valuable whales.

Hunted by commercial whalers until the last century for whale oil and baleen, bowhead whales are today still recovering slowly from their economic extinction. Some populations are faring better as a result, but it will take many more decades for this long-lived and slow reproducing species to recover to its pre-whaling numbers. Inuit in Canada, Greenland and Alaska are allowed a limited subsistence hunt for bowhead whales, sustaining important cultural traditions and values.

Modern threats include sea ice retreat and changes to food web dynamics due to rapid climate changeand ocean acidification. Bowheads are also affected by direct and indirect impacts of increased development such as oil and gas exploration, commercial shipping, and fishing. What would an oil spill in Canada's Beaufort Sea look like for bowheads and their ecosystem? Explore WWF's oil spill trajectory modeling project at arcticspills.wwf.ca to find out.

Bowheads on the move
The Canadian and Alaskan governments have attached satellite radio transmitters to a sample of bowhead whales, in order to better understand seasonal movements and habitat use of these Arctic giants.

This information can be used to identify and protect the most important areas used by these whales, and to help plan for further human activities (like shipping and development) in these sensitive, quiet arctic waters – the bowheads’ home – and in all decisions regarding the future of Arctic marine systems facing rapid climate and economic change.

© All Rights Reserved

Cape Mercy, Nunavut, Canada

Icebergs

Taken on September 1, 2018 (uploaded 3/21/19)

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