Climate change has severely reduced the length of the seal hunting season in a rural Alaska village, potentially threatening a key feature of the community’s Indigenous way of life.
Climate change has severely reduced the length of the seal hunting season in a rural Alaska village, potentially threatening a key feature of the community’s Indigenous way of life.
The Iñupiaq people of Kotzebue have depended on bearded seals, called ugruk in Iñupiaq, for food and clothing for generations. A new study led by Indigenous hunters, the Native Village of Kotzebue and scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks shows that over the past 17 years, the seal hunting season shrank about one day per year. Sea ice decline is a major cause of the shrinking season.
Both ugruk and hunters are closely tied to specific sea ice conditions. In spring, ugruk follow the melting Chukchi Sea ice edge northward during breakup and enter Kotzebue Sound. Inside the sound, ugruk rest on persistent chunks of floating ice, called floes, while feeding on abundant fish, shrimp and clams.
“Kotzebue Sound provides important spring habitat for bearded seals, with ice floes as platforms for seals to rest on between foraging bouts,” said Donna Hauser, marine mammal biologist at the UAF International Arctic Research Center and co-leader of the research. “We learned from our Kotzebue research partners that hunting ugruk is actually like hunting the right kind of ice.”
Read more at: University of Alaska - Fairbanks
