Their presence in these northern waters is a possible cause for concern, Kimber pointed out - at the least, it’s worth keeping an eye on. Killer whales, on the other hand, find it difficult to swim through ice-covered sea - the tall dorsal fins on their backs make it difficult for them to crunch through the ice.Īs the sea ice disappears, killer whales may find it easier to follow their prey farther north into the Arctic Ocean. These animals are adapted to the cold climate, and they’re able to easily navigate through the icy waters. Killer whales often feed on gray whales, bowhead whales and various kinds of seals, all of which frequent the Arctic Ocean. But Kimber suspects they’re probably following prey. It’s unclear why the killer whales are moving in. “We were seeing killer whales there where we really didn’t expect to see them,” Kimber said in an interview with E&E News. The ice there would typically be too thick. Recording stations farther north picked up even more surprising information.Ī station in the northern Chukchi Sea recorded orcas in 20, in a place where they hadn’t previously been detected. Meanwhile, orcas started showing up earlier as well.
By the end of the dataset, in 2019, it was disappearing a full month earlier. In 2012, when the recordings begin, the sea ice was melting in June. Killer whales are typically seasonal visitors in this area, migrating in during the summer when the sea ice melts away and moving back out when the water begins to freeze. The conclusions: Orcas are moving in as ice is moving out.ĭata from the Bering Strait, which runs between Alaska and Russia, suggests that killer whales are moving into the area earlier in the year as time goes by. The study draws on eight years of acoustic data, from 2012 to 2019, collected by recorders operated by NOAA’s Marine Mammal Laboratory. Kimber presented her findings yesterday at the Acoustical Society of America’s annual conference in Seattle. Orcas have a very distinctive call, so they’re easy to recognize on the recordings.
Kimber has been tracking the movements of killer whales through the Alaskan Arctic using underwater recorders, which pick up the sounds made by marine animals as they swim. “But with less ice, of course there’s less of a risk to them, so they’re able to venture further into the Arctic.” “ will normally avoid ice to avoid entrapment and suffocating,” said Brynn Kimber, a research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies, at a press conference Wednesday hosted by the Acoustical Society of America. Scientists believe melting sea ice is to blame. Orcas, also known as killer whales, are showing up in places they’ve never been spotted before. One of the ocean’s most fearsome predators is muscling into new parts of the icy Arctic Ocean.