Killer whales are expanding their territory and have moved into Arctic waters as climate change melts sea ice, with two genetically distinct populations being identified by Canadian scientists.
Killer whales are shown in the Eastern Canadian Arctic in this undated handout photo. Killer whales are expanding their territory and have moved into Arctic waters as climate change melts sea ice, with two genetically distinct populations being identified by Canadian researchers. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Maha Ghazal *MANDATORY CREDIT*
The study says the orcas could also affect humans, by “adding top-down pressure on Arctic food webs crucial to northern communities’ social and economic well-being.” Killer whales are shown in the Eastern Canadian Arctic in this undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Maha Ghazal *MANDATORY CREDIT*
“I was like — I didn’t believe it, and then I dug in and dug in and … it’s all pretty straightforward stuff to do when you have the data. And, sure enough, there were two distinct populations,” said Garroway, adding that they numbered in the hundreds. Hundreds of thousands of beluga, narwhal, bowhead, sperm whales, and bottlenose whales live in the Arctic orcas’ territories, he noted.
The study notes that the orcas’ prey species are “culturally and economically important to Indigenous communities, so these species also merit conservation and management concern in light of killer whale populations moving into the Arctic.”
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