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 6/10 Very Good --- www.newscientist.com http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/atom.xml
Thursday, May 15, 2008 --- 70 days ago http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2008/05/whales-on-early-migration.h
| View Larger Map Last week, Natalie Asselin of the University of Manitoba , a research student I've met while on board the CCGS Amundsen , carried out her first aerial whale survey. She and her helpers spotted two bowhead whales and two beluga whales – the latter are what Natalie is here to study. To the researchers on board, the sightings are exciting. It's the earliest that beluga whales have been recorded this far along their spring migration route. The obvious conclusion is that the increasing ice melt is making it easier for them to navigate the gaps of water between the land and the polar cap and move into the Mackenzie river delta. The arrival of the whales in the delta and their summer movement is fairly well understood, mainly because to the local Inuit, they are a major source of food. "It's not random that the settlements are grouped around the delta," Natalie points out. But what happens before the belugas get to the Mackenzie delta is something of a mystery. In 1977, a study on seal populations in the Amundsen Gulf , just north of the Mackenzie delta, spotted their first spring belugas on 27 May. Assuming one record is enough to go by, Natalie's sighting suggests the whales are arriving here earlier than they have in the past. Across the gulf from the Mackenzie delta is Banks Island and the Inuit settlement of Sachs Harbour. According to the locals at Sachs, belugas normally arrive in the area late in M ... |
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