A hunting Inuit family was almost 60 kilometres north of Kugaaruk, Canada, close to the Arctic circle, when they came across four dead bowhead whales stranded on the shore. After scanning for polar bears that might have been attracted by the carcasses, they snapped some photos and continued on their way. However, they came across another three dead bowhead whales only a few miles later. Again, photos were taken and later uploaded on Facebook.
These photos were seen and examined by Steve Ferguson, a research assistant with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Based on the injuries, he concluded that the whales have most likely been attacked by killer whales. Killer whales have been reported to hunt in pack-like groups that are able to take down the much larger bowhead whales. The rake marks on the carcasses’ sides might have thus been induced by killer whale teeth. The most telling evidence, though, was the damage done to the whales’ tongues that could even be seen on the pictures. Ferguson explains that “that’s a key piece of the whales that the killer whales like to eat.”
Still, seeing such a big group of whales being killed by killer whales and finding the latter so far up north is “just very unusual.” One reason might be that the sea ice has been increasingly melting throughout the last decades, with this summer being one of the lowest sea ice summers on record. The killer whales might have thus been able to travel further north and stay in arctic waters longer than they usually would have. “It might have just given the killer whales a little more time to do this. […] so it’s really just a big playground they have now to find pray.”
Ferguson stresses that the photos alone are not enough for certain evidence. A different possibility might have been a ship strike which is also quite unlikely, though, due to the low ship traffic in that area. Since the pandemic travel restrictions do not allow non-residents and therefore scientist into the area, Fisheries and Oceans is now working with the local community to get better photos and additional samples that might be able to determine the cause of death.
The full article can be found here: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/beached-bowhead-whales-in-western-nunavut-might-point-to-killer-whale-attacks-1.5152222
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