Inuit Wisdom and Polar Science Are Teaming Up to Save the Walrus
Article HERE:
[Excerpts]
...Throughout the Arctic, the traditional walrus hunt happens today much like it has for thousands of years—in teams armed with knowledge about walrus behavior accumulated over generations. But times are changing, and it’s not just that the hunters now have global positioning systems, speedboats, and cell phones. A rapidly changing environment is also altering walrus behavior in ways scientists are struggling to understand. As Arctic sea ice melts at a worrisome rate—in 2015 reaching the smallest maximum extent ever recorded—walruses are behaving strangely in parts of their range. That includes gathering in unusually large numbers on land.
Normally, females and calves prefer to haul out on sea ice instead of on land with the males. But as the ice disappears, the beaches are filling up. In September 2014, 35,000 Pacific walruses piled together near the village of Point Lay, Alaska, making international headlines for a record-setting heap of jostling tusks and whiskers on American soil. In October 2010, 120,000 walruses—perhaps half the world’s population—crowded onto one Russian haul-out site.
For their part, scientists are racing to gather information about walruses, including attempts to get the first accurate head count amidst increased shipping traffic, proposed oil drilling, and other disturbances in key walrus habitat. A 2017 deadline for a decision by the United States government on whether to list walruses under the Endangered Species Act is fueling a new sense of urgency. A major goal is to explain changing walrus behaviors and understand what, if any, protections they might require. But there is another unanswered question that is just as critical, if less quantifiable: What do new walrus behaviors mean for indigenous people who have long depended on the animals?
SNIP
...Though related, these questions represent a clash between two contradictory ways of seeing the natural world. There’s science, which respects numbers and data above all else. And then there’s traditional knowledge, which instead prioritizes relationships between people and animals. In the Inuit view, walruses have a sense of personhood and agency, says Erica Hill, an anthropologist at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. They act and react. As Kunuk points out, animal populations—caribou, fish, seals, and walruses—have always cycled. Unlike the scientists, the Inuit feel it’s best not to talk about how many come by each year. The animals might overhear, feel disrespected, and choose to stay away.
“If we talk about the walrus too much, they’re going to change,” says Kunuk. “If we were farmers we would count our stock. But we’re hunters and these are wild animals.”
Because scientists and hunters use wholly different systems to process knowledge, merging what they know is like trying to read a book in a foreign, if slightly familiar, language. Still, both worldviews share a deep caring for the animals, suggesting that a true understanding of the walrus may come only by allowing each perspective to teach the other. To accurately interpret emerging science, perhaps researchers must incorporate a much deeper history, one embedded in native traditions.
Walruses—and the people who have long relied on them—have, after all, been dealing with hunters, climate variations, and other obstacles for centuries. And Inuit hunters know that walruses have repeatedly adapted to change with more resilience than several decades of scientific data can detect. Within that intricate relationship may lie important lessons for maintaining a delicate balance between species that have coexisted in a harsh and unpredictable environment for millennia. This often-overlooked complexity adds a twist to the standard narrative surrounding Arctic creatures—that environmental change leads to certain catastrophe. It might not be so simple.
REST OF ARTICLE HERE:
Article HERE:
[Excerpts]
...Throughout the Arctic, the traditional walrus hunt happens today much like it has for thousands of years—in teams armed with knowledge about walrus behavior accumulated over generations. But times are changing, and it’s not just that the hunters now have global positioning systems, speedboats, and cell phones. A rapidly changing environment is also altering walrus behavior in ways scientists are struggling to understand. As Arctic sea ice melts at a worrisome rate—in 2015 reaching the smallest maximum extent ever recorded—walruses are behaving strangely in parts of their range. That includes gathering in unusually large numbers on land.
Normally, females and calves prefer to haul out on sea ice instead of on land with the males. But as the ice disappears, the beaches are filling up. In September 2014, 35,000 Pacific walruses piled together near the village of Point Lay, Alaska, making international headlines for a record-setting heap of jostling tusks and whiskers on American soil. In October 2010, 120,000 walruses—perhaps half the world’s population—crowded onto one Russian haul-out site.
For their part, scientists are racing to gather information about walruses, including attempts to get the first accurate head count amidst increased shipping traffic, proposed oil drilling, and other disturbances in key walrus habitat. A 2017 deadline for a decision by the United States government on whether to list walruses under the Endangered Species Act is fueling a new sense of urgency. A major goal is to explain changing walrus behaviors and understand what, if any, protections they might require. But there is another unanswered question that is just as critical, if less quantifiable: What do new walrus behaviors mean for indigenous people who have long depended on the animals?
SNIP
...Though related, these questions represent a clash between two contradictory ways of seeing the natural world. There’s science, which respects numbers and data above all else. And then there’s traditional knowledge, which instead prioritizes relationships between people and animals. In the Inuit view, walruses have a sense of personhood and agency, says Erica Hill, an anthropologist at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. They act and react. As Kunuk points out, animal populations—caribou, fish, seals, and walruses—have always cycled. Unlike the scientists, the Inuit feel it’s best not to talk about how many come by each year. The animals might overhear, feel disrespected, and choose to stay away.
“If we talk about the walrus too much, they’re going to change,” says Kunuk. “If we were farmers we would count our stock. But we’re hunters and these are wild animals.”
Because scientists and hunters use wholly different systems to process knowledge, merging what they know is like trying to read a book in a foreign, if slightly familiar, language. Still, both worldviews share a deep caring for the animals, suggesting that a true understanding of the walrus may come only by allowing each perspective to teach the other. To accurately interpret emerging science, perhaps researchers must incorporate a much deeper history, one embedded in native traditions.
Walruses—and the people who have long relied on them—have, after all, been dealing with hunters, climate variations, and other obstacles for centuries. And Inuit hunters know that walruses have repeatedly adapted to change with more resilience than several decades of scientific data can detect. Within that intricate relationship may lie important lessons for maintaining a delicate balance between species that have coexisted in a harsh and unpredictable environment for millennia. This often-overlooked complexity adds a twist to the standard narrative surrounding Arctic creatures—that environmental change leads to certain catastrophe. It might not be so simple.
REST OF ARTICLE HERE:
