Bowhead whales overwinter in the Amundsen Gulf and Eastern Beaufort Sea

The bowhead whale is the only baleen whale endemic to the Arctic and is
well adapted to this environment. Bowheads live near the polar ice edge
for much of the year and although sea ice dynamics are not the only driver
of their annual migratory movements, it likely plays a key role. Given the
intrinsic variability of open water and ice, one might expect bowhead
migratory plasticity to be high and linked to this proximate environmental
factor. Here, through a network of underwater passive acoustic recorders,
we document the first known occurrence of bowheads overwintering in what
is normally their summer foraging grounds in the Amundsen Gulf and eastern
Beaufort Sea. The underlying question is whether this is the leading edge
of a phenological shift in a species’ migratory behaviour in an
environment undergoing dramatic shifts due to climate change.