Campaigners have warned that ivory peddlers may continue to sell elephant tusks after a new ban if they disguise their products as walrus or narwhal derivatives. The trading in elephant teeth and tusks became prohibited in the UK on Monday, and violators could face fines of up to £250,000 or five years in prison under […]
Tag: Narwhal
Without a hunting ban, there is high chance that narwhals will become extinct in Greenland by 2025
Since he was a child, Hammeken Danielsen has been hunting narwhals. He and his father would cruise through the fjords of Greenland in a tiny speedboat, equipped with rifles and harpoons and clothed in polar-bear fur trousers and sealskin boots to keep warm in the cold. Danielsen, aged 33, is a licensed hunter in Ittoqqortoormiit, […]
Rejection of Arctic mine expansion bid offers hope for narwhal population
The expansion of an iron ore mine in the Arctic that would have increased shipping and led to the “complete extirpation of narwhal” from the region has been blocked. After four years of consultations and deliberations, the Nunavut Impact Review Board rejected a request from Baffinland Iron Mines Corp asking to significantly increase mining on […]
UK government seeks to extend protection of ivory-bearing animals
Hippos, walruses and killer whales could receive greater legal protection under government proposals to extend the ban on ivory poaching. The plans would see the Ivory Act broadened to cover more animals, with ministers saying elephants are not the only species at risk. The proposed protections opened for public consultation on Saturday, and the Department […]
Arctic biodiversity at risk as world overshoots climate planetary boundary
Today, bowhead whales still transit the fringes of Arctic waters. Polar bears hunt blubbery ringed seals from rafts of ice. And ivory gulls ride gale force winds, plucking juvenile polar cod from the roiling sea. But for how much longer? Despite more than a century of scientific observation, the Central Arctic Ocean remains one of […]
Arctic ice loss forces polar bears to use four times as much energy to survive – study
Polar bears and narwhals are using up to four times as much energy to survive because of major ice loss in the Arctic, according to scientists. Once perfectly evolved for polar life, apex predators are struggling as their habitats shrink and unique adaptations become less suited to an increasingly ice-free Arctic, researchers say. The mammals […]
Rapidly warming oceans have left many northern marine mammals swimming in troubled waters. But perhaps none more so than than the strange and mysterious “unicorn of the sea,” the narwhal.
An exhaustive new study estimates, habitat suitable to narwhals could shrink by a staggering twenty-five percent by century’s end. Thanks to manmade climate change, their watery home is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth. And, in a scant few decades, sea-ice, so vital to their survival, could be gone altogether during Arctic summers. Narwhals […]
Narwhals are on the verge of EXTINCTION because of excessive hunting by Inuit catchers in Greenland, scientist warns
Narwhals are at risk of extinction with their numbers shrinking drastically because of excessive hunting in Greenland, a scientist has warned.Known as the ‘unicorns of the sea’ and best known for their tusks which can grow to be 10ft long, the mammals live in the Arctic waters of Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia. But experts […]