Unregulated commercial whaling caused the number of bowhead whales to decrease to an alarmingly low level.
BY JENELL TALLEY
People long have been fascinated by whales. Classic novels have been written about the world's largest mammals, Shamu was among Sea World's most popular attractions, and whale-sighting adventures have become ever-popular excursions. Still, despite widespread reverence for these kings of the sea, species' numbers, such as those of the bowhead whale, are cause for concern in some areas.
Bowhead whales, Balaena mysticetus, inhabit different parts of the Arctic in five populations. The western Arctic stock, near Alaska's Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, is the only group with significant numbers - 9,860. Most of this stock inhabits the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas. Bowheads also are found in the Okhotsk Sea, North Atlantic, Davis Strait, and Hudson Bay, but none of these stocks numbers more than 100.
Commercial whalers discovered the bowhead whale in 1611. Bowheads were prime targets because they are slow and nonaggressive, and because they float once they've been killed. Hunters favored bowheads' meat and blubbery skin, and large profits were made from the sale of their oil, baleen, and whale bone, which was used for corsets, buggy whips, watch springs, and fishing rods.
Extensive unregulated commercial whaling began around 1848 and went on for more than 60 years, pushing the bowhead species to the brink of extinction by the early 20th century.
Bowheads are a distinct group. Their bodies are less streamlined than those of other baleen whales, and they are the only baleen whales that spend their entire lives near sea ice-their blubber, up to 1.5 feet thick, enables them to live comfortably in Arctic waters. When the species surfaces to breathe, a V-shaped spout emerges from twin blowholes at the peak of its triangular-shaped head.
Bowheads have the largest head in the animal kingdom. It accounts for one-third of their body length and is strong enough to rip through sea ice a foot thick. The whales grow to be about 60 feet long and weigh up to 75 tons, thanks to a diet of copepods, euphausiids, and other small invertebrates. They have smooth, black skin with splotches of white on their chins, stomachs, and tails. They have short, narrow flippers and wide flukes, often stretching 27 feet across.
The whales navigate through ice-choked waters using sound. Bowheads are slow swimmers and retreat under ice when alarmed. Killer whales and humans are their only known predators and only major threats.
Before commercial whaling, there were more than 50,000 bowheads worldwide. Between the 1600s and 1800s, eastern Arctic stocks were reduced from more than 30,000 to fewer than 1,000. In the late 1800s, nearly 200 were taken each year.
Today, Alaskan Eskimos kill about 40 bowheads per year for food. "This is a carefully managed hunt with quotas set through the International Whaling Commission (IWC)," says Sheela McLean, public information officer for the Alaska Region of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau. There is no commercial take, she says. Numbers are, consequently, on the rise.
The western Arctic population is growing at a comfortable rate, currently increasing 3.3 percent per year, according to the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management. Dave Rugh, a wildlife biologist at the National Marine Mammal Lab in Alaska, says, "The numbers reflect a very healthy recovery rate."
