Pan-Arctic Tracking of Beluga Whales (PATOB)

Beluga hunting is an important activity for many Inuit communities in Canada, Alaska and Greenland. Hunting, initially by commercial whalers, reduced eastern Hudson and Ungava Bay beluga numbers and these stocks now have a COSEWIC status of 'endangered.' Management activities over the last decade have lead to declines in harvest levels. Nonetheless, continued access to beluga remains important to the Inuit subsistence culture. Beluga are commonly associated with freshwater estuaries during summer, where they are vulnerable to hunting and over-winter in ice-covered waters. Some populations are highly migratory, while others show little seasonal change in distribution. Changes in freshwater inputs, oceanographic conditions, and winter ice cover, as well as developments in commercial fisheries may impact on migration corridors, foraging, and seasonal distribution patterns of beluga, and may increase competition as more temperate species (whales and seals) move into northern areas. Such changes will alter access by hunters to whales, upsetting traditional harvest patterns, while the influx of new species will require changes in cultural values, development of new harvesting technologies and will increase international scrutiny.