In the Alaskan Arctic, salmon were once a rare sighting. But warming temperatures have made them more common. Climate change is also changing whale patterns in the Arctic. These shifts are fascinating scientists and a cause for concern for Indigenous communities in Alaska who rely on these animals.
The Alaska’ Desk’s Alena Naiden reports on how these changes could impact subsistence lifestyles, and what scientists are saying about them. Elizabeth Mik'aq Lindley is a graduate student who is studying Pacific salmon in the Arctic. “Salmon are spawning in the Arctic,” Lindley said, “and it does seem like it's thermally survivable, thermally possible and plausible that they can incubate and emerge at the right time, given these temperatures.”
In Utqiagvik, the northernmost city in the United States, humpback whale sightings were rare, just a few times a year in the past couple years. But last fall, researchers saw something completely unexpected. Kate Stafford, an oceanographer and a professor at the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, was one of those researchers.“We came across what I would call Humpback Palooza,” Stafford said. “Just dozens of humpback whales, which was crazy.”
