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Bowhead whales, which are found amid the sea ice of the Arctic, can live for about 200 years.
But bowhead whales born today may grow up in a very different ocean than their parents.
Freymueller: “Because the Arctic is warming so fast, all of this sea ice is melting, and the potential future might be very uncertain for them.”
Nick Freymueller is a Ph.D. candidate at the universities of Adelaide and Copenhagen.
He and his colleagues used fossils and historic whaling ship records to map where bowhead whales have lived over the past 12,000 years.
They found that whales have consistently been found in parts of the ocean with about 15 to 30% sea ice cover in the summer.
Freymueller: “This pattern has been pretty remarkable. If you go back to bowhead whale fossils 10,000 years ago or 5,000 years ago, historical occurrences from whaling logbooks, they’re all in the same sort of 15-30% sea ice, on average, over the summer.”
But the study also found that with climate change, suitable habitat for the whales could become rarer.
Freymueller says it’s still unclear exactly why the whales are drawn to this particular amount of sea ice.
So he says further research is needed to better understand what threats may await bowhead whales as the climate warms.
Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media
