DNA: Commercial whaling has left the bowhead whale vulnerable for many generations to come. A unique collection of prehistoric bowhead whale bones, dating back 11,000 years, reveals a previously untold story of the relative impacts of humans on nature. The time series of ancient fossils show that commercial hunting of bowhead whales, which spanned […]
Applied research collects data needed to ensure food security for Indigenous subsistence hunters in the United States and Canada. In 2025, NOAA and the Alaska North Slope Borough successfully completed a survey to count bowhead and beluga whales in the U.S. and Canadian Beaufort Seas and Amundsen Gulf. This international, multi-agency, multi-species project was the result of 3 […]
Second reported sighting in eastern North Pacific waters south of the Aleutian Island chain. A new scientific paper discusses the first NOAA Fisheries record of a bowhead whale in Southeast Alaska. It is only the second documented sighting of this Arctic species in the eastern North Pacific, south of the Aleutian Islands. The whale was observed by […]
New research examining 11,700 years of bowhead whale persistence throughout the Arctic projects that sea ice loss due to climate change will cause their habitat to severely contract by up to 75 per cent. An international team led by researchers from the University of Adelaide and the University of Copenhagen reconstructed an 11,700-year ecological baseline […]