Bowhead whale threatened by climate change
New research looking at over 11,000 years of bowhead whale persistence across the Arctic has found that a decline in sea ice due to climate change will reduce their habitat to reduce by up to 75%. An international team of scientists from the University of Adelaide and the University of Copenhagen reconstructed an 11,700-year ecological baseline for the threatened Arctic animal.
With computer modelling, fossils, and whaling records, they mapped the location and size of suitable summer foraging habitats for the bowhead whale, finding that it has remained constant despite significant changes in the climate.
Future climate change however, they predict, will erode anywhere from 65-75% of this foraging habitat by the end of this century. In the Sea of Okhotsk, home to one of only four bowhead whale populations, it is expected to disappear completely by 2060.
The reason is the close connection between the whales and summer sea ice cover.
“Bowhead whales have preferred to forage amongst sea ice for many millennia,” lead author Mr Nicholas Freymueller, from the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute and the University of Copenhagen’s Globe Institute said. “However, Arctic sea ice has declined significantly in recent decades, and this is set to accelerate in coming decades, causing habitats where bowhead whales currently congregate in large numbers to be lost.”
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