Sitting on the "Perch" to Count Bowhead Whales "It was 11:45 p.m., four miles
Northeast of Barrow, Alaska. The snow was blowing sideways, the wind chill was down to 51
degrees below zero, and the sun was setting, " said Albert Barros, community liaison
for the MMS Alaska Region. "I, along with two other census counters, was standing on
"the perch" watching a narrow slip of open water in the darkening light for a
glimpse of a bowhead whale and straining to hear the blowing of the bowhead as it came up
for air. "The perch" was a 15-foot high observation platform that we had constructed on the edge of the shorefast ice of the Chukchi Sea. It was really like standing on an ice cube because the perch was made of ice blocks with a three-foot canvas windbreak around the top. The cement for the structure was a mixture of seawater and snow combined to make slurry that freezes solid overnight. What was I doing in such conditions? I had volunteered to assist in the North Slope Borough’s bowhead whale census." "Along the Alaska Arctic coast,
ice begins forming in September and October and grows in thickness through the winter.
During this period, drifting ice, including multi-year "pack" driven by wind and
currents, collides with shorefast ice, forming pressure ridges. Often, in waters less than
30 meters deep, large pressure ridges are "grounded" on the sea floor. The
stability of the shorefast ice depends on grounded pressure ridge systems on its seaward
edge. Periodically, sea currents and wind push the pack ice offshore,
creating a flaw zone between the shorefast and pack ice.
In this flaw zone, leads or channels of open water and polynyas, discrete areas of open
water develop. Bowheads use this zone in the spring to migrate from the Bering Sea to
summering grounds, mainly in the eastern Beaufort Sea off Canada." (From: The
Bowhead Whale, Current Population Size and Dynamics, Zeh et al., 1993) The bowhead whale migration is an annual spring event when the whales begin their migration up through the Chukchi Sea and into the Beaufort Sea for the summer. They pass by Barrow in late April through May as they travel in three pulses or "three schools" as the Inupiat whalers put it. This is when the Inupiat conduct their spring subsistence hunt for bowheads as the whales pass by Alaska's North Slope. In 1972, the International Whaling Commission requested information on the bowhead population, hunting pressure, and trends after noting the absence of data on the size of the Bering Sea bowhead population and details of subsistence whaling. As a result of the IWC’s concern and the lack of data, the bowhead whale census was started in the spring of 1976. The last complete whale census was conducted in 1993. It determined that there were about 8,200 bowheads increasing at a rate of about three- percent per year. This year’s whale census was a cooperative effort financed by the North Slope Borough and the National Marines Fisheries Service with a donation from British Petroleum. Key to the census effort, is the support of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and the Barrow Whaling Captains. With the understanding of the importance of the census to whaling activities and wanting to learn more about the spring bowhead whaling, Albert Barros, Alaska OCS Regional Community Liaison, volunteered to assist the whale census program for 15 days. Albert, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho, grew up on his reservation and participated in tribal hunting and fishing activities. He understands the relationship between the Inupiat and the Bowhead whale. "The whale hunt is an essential part of Inupiat culture not only for food but because of the significance and symbolism of the hunting, the teamwork, the leadership and knowledge required, the rite of passage and acceptance, acknowledgement of place in the community and the process for community-wide distribution of the whale after a successful hunt. The gift of the whale itself to the hunters is part of the inter-relationship of man and nature, Albert said." Accommodations while on-ice were three
tents with sleeping bags and one cook tent that had a propane heater going 24-hours a day
for warmth and for melting ice for drinking water. Speaking about the sleeping
arrangements, Albert said, "To minimize the amount of equipment in camp, and in case
we needed to evacuate quickly, we had to "hot bunk" for sleeping arrangements.
There were different shifts to enable the counting to go on continuously around the clock.
I would spend 4 hours on the perch, 2 hours in the cook tent eating, rehydrating, and
getting warm; then back to the perch for the final 4 hours of my shift. As my shift was
drawing to a close, the next shift would get up, eat, and prepare something to drink for
their first four hours and then come out to relieve us. We would then go back to the tents
to eat, rehydrate, finalize counts, and then crawl into the sleeping bags the other crew
had just left." "We did have to evacuate camp twice because of changing ice conditions. We had to collapse the tents, pack everything onto sleds towed behind the snowmobiles and move to where the ice was safe. Our first move took us a little longer than it should have," Albert said, " but the second move went smoothly with people knowing what was expected of them. "I should point out that our second camp was located near the lead at the invitation of one of the whaling crews. When they started packing up and came to advise us that we should do the same, we were ready to start packing. Under the pressure of having the whaling crew being nearby, everybody wanted to look like we knew what we were doing." "We also lost two perches to changing ice conditions and large ice pans, ice chunks, floating by in the current. Those pans were capable of breaking off huge chunks of the shorefast ice and that is what happened to one of our perches. The other sank as a result of a crack in the ice between it and the shore. It was hard to watch our hard work sink into the Beaufort Sea, but we were glad not to be standing on it as it went down." Albert was given the opportunity to participate in the two different methods for "double counting" the whales. The first method is done visually by counters standing on "the perch" watching for whales moving through the open leads. It takes a good eye to see the whales surfacing in the leads which may be up to one mile across or closed entirely. It seems odd to say that it takes an effort to spot a mammal weighing up to 60 tons and reaching a length of 65 feet but the bowhead is quite elusive. The second method, developed by Dr. Chris Clark of Cornell University, uses hydrophones in at least three sites to locate the whales by triangulation from the sounds the whales make as they pass the station. "We know some whales pass without making a sound because we see whales and don’t hear them on the hydrophones. We also know that some whales pass under the ice because we hear them and don’t see them, so by a combination of the two methods, analyzed by statisticians, we can come up with an accurate count," Clark said. After spending some time observing the operation in the acoustic shack and assisting in hydrophone maintenance, Albert preferred the visual duties on the perch. "Although we were exposed to the cold and a few polar bears came visiting, I really enjoyed watching the whales pass by. Some of the whales would "spy hop" or come up out of the water, others would roll, interact with other whales, and it was always a treat to see the whales "fluking" where they would flip their tales into the air before submerging." Working on the ice requires more than just warm clothing. Everyone working on the ice had to carry a two-way radio and a shotgun for protection against polar bears. Additionally, each of the tents was equipped with a 12-gauge shotgun with slugs. Also, the campsite had a bear fence with an audible siren to warn the campers of a bear in camp or of a clumsy camper. Usually when a bear gets too close, a "screamer/banger" is fired in the direction of the bear to scare it away. The screamer/banger is a pistol that fires two projectiles. The first whistles as it approaches the bear to get its attention. The second, on a one-second delay, fires a projectile that explodes with a loud bang above the bear. "However, it is quite beautiful to watch the graceful animals on the ice and in the water – even if you know that it is coming to investigate what you are doing and to determine if you are edible," Albert acknowledged. During all the years the Borough has conducted the whale census, only two polar bears have been killed in self-defense. During the 15 days that Albert was participating, the visual crew counted about 1,400 bowhead whales. Also, just after Albert left Barrow to return to his office in Anchorage, the lead closed and did not reopen significantly until early June.
|
