Climate change threatens seal hunting by Indigenous Alaskans

Date:
August 24, 2021
Source:
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Summary:
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 study led by
Indigenous hunters, the Native Village of Kotzebue and scientists
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.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== 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 In~upiaq people of Kotzebue have depended on bearded seals, called
ugruk in In~upiaq, 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." Hunters safely and predictably found
ugruk on these resting platforms in the past. The study combined hunters' knowledge of the ice conditions needed for ugruk hunting with data from satellite images. The results showed that the necessary ice floes now
melt from the Kotzebue Sound roughly 22 days earlier than they did in
2003, the first year of the study.

"We used to hunt ugruk into July when I was growing up back in the
1950s," said Bobby Schaeffer, a Kotzebue elder, hunter and co-author of
the new paper.

"People would be out there during Fourth of July celebration because there
was so much ice. Now sometimes we're done before June comes around."
While the hunting season is pushed to a close about 26 days earlier
on average than in the past, hunters are not necessarily able to begin
hunting any earlier. The season's start timing is driven by the arrival
of seals and a hunter's ability to launch boats through a channel in
the ice that opens in front of Kotzebue.



========================================================================== Squeezing the hunting season into a shorter window means that there is
less flexibility for hunters.

"Now in some years there is only a good weekend or two, and, if people
want to maximize their opportunity, they have to prepare before the
season even starts," said Alex Whiting, director of the Native Village
of Kotzebue's Environmental Program and co-leader of the research.

Whiting's weekly observations of the local weather, ugruk activity and
hunting pursuits of Kotzebue residents helped to quantify the shrinking
ugruk hunting season.

Whiting said he was inspired to start a journal in 2002 after reading
records of Alaska from the early 1900s.

"When you're living in the present, daily activities don't seem
particularly notable or remarkable," explained Whiting. "But I understood
that they would be useful over time and that things were changing rapidly,
and it would be great to have a record of it." Even with the shrinking
season, Whiting's tribal records show that harvest success has not significantly changed. Instead, it is the type of hunting experience
that has shifted. Past ice floes were large and complex, and hunters
had to search long and far to find ugruk. Now, with less ice, hunters
typically embark on shorter, more frequent trips.

Hunters have noticed that ugruk seem to have changed their behavior
too. They often congregate in large groups on the scarce ice floes. Spring
2019 stood out to hunters and scientists because Kotzebue Sound was
nearly void of ice.

Hundreds of ugruk gathered on just a few floes near Kotzebue. Hunting
success was high, and effort was low.

Hunters worry that in future years, ugruk and ice floes may be farther
from Kotzebue across large expanses of open water, increasing the risk
to boaters and lowering their chance of a successful hunt.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Alaska_Fairbanks. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Donna D W Hauser, Alex V Whiting, Andrew R Mahoney, John Goodwin,
Cyrus
Harris, Robert J Schaeffer, Roswell Schaeffer, Nathan J M Laxague,
Ajit Subramaniam, Carson R Witte, Sarah Betcher, Jessica M Lindsay,
Christopher J Zappa. Co-production of knowledge reveals loss
of Indigenous hunting opportunities in the face of accelerating
Arctic climate change. Environmental Research Letters, 2021; 16
(9): 095003 DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac1a36 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210824135311.htm

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