What Inughuit hunters can teach us about the revered narwhal

. The 35-year-old Inughuit hunter and his companions had traveled to the spring ice edge last year—half a day by dogsled from Qaanaaq, Greenland. About 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it is one of the northernmost towns in the world. The muffled puff of a whale’s breath escaped the glassy waters near the western end of Qeqertarsuaq, or Herbert Island. The narwhal paused at the surface—seemingly offering itself to the hunter, as some Inughuit might say.

To Inughuit, the narwhal hunt is an integral part of living and thriving on their ancestral territory around Pikialasorsuaq, an open-water region north of thethat in midsummer can cover more than 30,000 square miles. The North Water Polynya, as it’s also called, is an overwintering ground for narwhals, belugas, walruses, and bowhead whales. Its waters teem with Greenland halibut, arctic cod, and other fish, and its rocky shores provide nesting habitat for tens of millions of little auks.

But these practices are under threat, say many Inughuit hunters. “Narwhal hunting culture is disappearing … because of the quota system,” explained Hivshu’s son, Aleqatsiaq, a hunter and musician from Qaanaaq. “The quota is so small that the hunters have to keep everything to themselves, instead of sharing, because they need to make money.”majority.

The institute’s current estimate for the Inglefield stock is between 2,000 and 6,000 narwhals, a range based on aerial surveys conducted in 2007 and 2019. For 2024, the JCNB recommended reducing the quota from 84 to about 50 narwhals. After taking hunters’ concerns into account, however, the minister left the quota at 84.

Some hunters call for increasing or completely abandoning government-imposed limits. Inughuit want to steward their homeland themselves. “We live together with the animals we hunt, year around,” said Qillaq. “The biologists who count these animals need to come and spend time with the hunters to learn from us.”

Globally, there are many examples of how Indigenous knowledge enriches scientific understanding of nature in general and whale counts in particular. In Alaska the International Whaling Commission banned the bowhead whale harvest in 1977, eroding the Alaska Inuit’s traditional way of life. U.S. researchers soon partnered with Alaska Inuit to revise their census methodology to incorporate Inuit knowledge of whale migration behavior under the ice and far offshore.

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