Inuit Want Arctic Policy To Protect Their Culture

(Click to enlarge) Bearded Seal (Erignathus barbatus). These large seals, reaching up to 2.7m in length and 430kg in weight, are a primary food source for Polar Bears. (Credit: Allan Hopkins/Flickr)

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA—Alaska Inuit hunter John Goodwin for decades has hunted oogruk, the bearded seal, a marine mammal prized for its meat, oil and hide.

(From The Star) — The largest of Alaska’s ice seals uses sea ice to rest and birth pups, and after the long winter, when ice breaks into floes, there’s a window of opportunity for Goodwin to leave his home in Kotzebue and motor his boat between ice panels, shoot seals and butcher them before they migrate north through the Bering Strait.

A hunting season that used to last weeks, however, has shrunk. Ice that formerly froze 1.5-metres thick or more is a fraction of that. Ice disappears quickly, and so do the seals.

“As soon as the sun comes out, it starts melting, or we have a heavy rain,” Goodwin said. “Basically, it’s the rain that deteriorates the ice real quick. We don’t have enough time to hunt.”

 Read the full article here: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/12/27/inuit-want-arctic-policy-to-protect-their-culture.html.