No More Narwhals?
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Yes, that's my very own Narwhal tusk. (Okay, technically it's my father's, but he left it here when he moved south, so I've basically appropriated it unless and until he notices.) Living in the Arctic, such things aren't terribly uncommon, but that may change in the near future.
The polar bear has become an icon of global warming vulnerability, but a new study found an Arctic mammal that may be even more at risk to climate change: the narwhal.
The narwhal, a whale with a long spiral tusk that inspired the myth of the unicorn, edged out the polar bear for the ranking of most potentially vulnerable in a climate change risk analysis of Arctic marine mammals.
. . .
"What we wanted to do was look at the whole picture because there's been a lot of attention on polar bears," said study co-author Ian Stirling, a polar bear and seal specialist for the Canadian government. "We're talking about a whole ecosystem. We're talking about several different species that use ice extensively and are very vulnerable."
. . .
Stanford University biologist Terry Root, who wasn't part of the study, said the analysis reinforces her concern that the narwhal "is going to be one of the first to go extinct" from global warming despite their population size.
"There could a bazillion of them, but if the habitat or the things that they need are not going to be around, they're not going to make it," Root said.
Polar bears can adapt a bit to the changing Arctic climate, narwhals can't, she said.
. . .
The narwhal, which dives about 6,000 feet to feed on Greenland halibut, is the ultimate specialist, evolved specifically to live in small cracks in parts of the Arctic where it's 99 percent heavy ice, Laidre said. As the ice melts, not only is the narwhal habitat changed, predators such as killer whales will likely intrude more often.
"Since it's so restricted to the migration routes it takes, it's restricted to what it eats, it makes it more vulnerable to the loss of those things," Laidre said in a telephone interview from Greenland, where she is studying narwhals by airplane.
. . .
Inuit natives of Greenland were telling scientists last year that it seemed that the narwhal population was in trouble, Corell said.
Over-hunting is a danger the Inuit understand and can control, and they've shown remarkable ability to provide more accurate estimates of animal populations using traditional knowledge than the scientists using their models. So when they worry, I worry.
Climate change is something the tiny Arctic population can't do much to control, but it is here that it's effects will be most felt. And as per usual, it is the animal population that will be the first victims of man's destructive tendencies, and that beautiful spiral tusk of mine may go from being a byproduct of an annual harvest to an irreplaceable memento of a lost species.
Cross-posted to In The House and Senate
