In a new study of large whales in East Greenland, researchers have documented a dramatic biodiversity shift: minke whales, fin whales and humpback whales, once rarely seen in these waters, have now become abundant.<\/p>\n
The research, conducted by Mads Peter Heide-J\u00f8rgensen\u00a0from\u00a0the\u00a0Greenland Institute of Natural Resources\u00a0and colleagues in\u00a0Greenland, Denmark and Iceland, presents a striking example of how biodiversity can change as\u00a0sea temperatures increase and sea ice dwindles.<\/p>\n
As part of the study, published in\u00a0Frontiers in Marine Science<\/em>, researchers compared numbers of whales from 1987 to 2025 using observations from sea and air, tagging data and information from Inuit hunters.<\/p>\n The team developed a mathematical model to find patterns in the data sets and highlighted exceptionally high densities of whales, including spectacular aggregations of between 20 and 50 humpbacks in 2025.<\/p>\n In 2024 alone,\u00a0at least 4,000\u00a0humpback whales, 6,000\u00a0fin whales and 6,000 minke whales visited the Greenland Sea, reports the study.<\/p>\n