By Julia O’Malley

July 01, 2015

KOTZEBUE, Alaska-In this Far North village, no animal provides more protein
to fill freezers than the bearded seal. A single seal can supply hundreds of
pounds of meat, enough to feed a large, extended family for a winter.

For generations, every late June and early July, native hunters like Ross
Schaeffer and his niece Karmen Schaeffer Monigold have motored through the
broken sea ice of Kotzebue Sound in northwestern Alaska, looking for seals
basking on frosty rafts. But this year, temperatures were close to 70
degrees, there was no ice in sight, and the seals had already migrated
north.

This seal-hunting season was the shortest in memory, lasting less than a
week, compared with the usual three weeks.

Schaeffer and Monigold did manage to get a few animals, but the conditions
were nothing like Schaeffer, 68, had seen before. By the third week in June,
when Monigold would usually be dressed for cold, she drove out to check on
her drying seal hide wearing flip-flops and shorts.

“Every year we’ve gone out, it’s getting harder and harder because the ice
is so rotten by the time it’s time to go hunting that the seals are hard to
find,” Monigold says.

Pictures of ice melting in Kotzebue, Alaska from a helicopter
< http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2015/07/02/sealhunting/
02sealhunting.ngsversion.855e78e69274979c8008eed13c1e1a3d.adapt.1900.1.jpg>

The amount of ice near Kotzebue, Alaska, changed dramatically between May,
2015, (on the left) and June (on the right.) This May was the warmest on
record in Kotzebue.

Photographs by Katie Orlinsky, National Geographic

In Kotzebue, as temperatures and ice become increasingly unpredictable,
hunters worry their children and grandchildren will no longer be able to
participate in the traditional seal hunt. Kotzebue is among the largest of
roughly 40 Alaska Native communities on the coast between Bristol Bay and
Kaktovik that rely on bearded seal.

< http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/rights-exempt/nat-geo-s
taff-maps/2015/07/Alaska_Kotzebue_Sound/MAP_News_KotzebueSound_Alaska.ngsver
sion.4ceafa8a7ae3c316be4efd0cb84acb55.adapt.352.1.jpg>

NG MAPS

Kotzebue’s changing seal season is part of another chapter of Alaska’s
accelerated climate change story, which is threatening the food, economics,
and culture of Native communities.

The longtime patterns of many animals are changing. For example, the timing
of caribou migration
< http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/home/library/pdfs/wildlife/caribou_trails
/caribou_trails_2014.pdf> has been later, which scientists say may be linked
to warmer temperatures. And in the Bering Sea, wild weather and unusual sea
ice patterns have hampered
< http://www.fws.gov/alaska/fisheries/mmm/walrus/pdf/influence_of_wind_ice_sp
ring_walrus_hunting_success_2013.pdf> walrus hunting, causing serious food
shortages in some villages.
< http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304795804579101440469640728>

An Alaska Hotspot

The winter of 2014 was the warmest ever measured
< https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/%E2%80%9Cwinter%E2%80%9
D-alaska> across Alaska, and this summer has so far followed a similar
pattern, according to the National Weather Service, with hot, dry conditions
fueling hundreds of wildfires. It was the warmest May ever recorded in
Kotzebue– 8 degrees warmer than usual.

“It started raining, and it rained every night for about four or five
nights. It rained hard. That rain is so warm it just seeps right through the
ice and the ice pops up and it’s all rotten already,” says Schaeffer, who
has been hunting for about 60 years. “It’s not like it used to be.”

Picture of Ross Schaeffer
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Ross Schaeffer, 68, who has been participating in subsistence hunts since he
was a child, says the ice conditions In Kotzebue Sound last month were
unlike any he has ever seen before. “It’s not like it used to be,” he says.

Photograph by Katie Orlinsky, National Geographic

Picture of children in Alaska swimming
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Children swam in the sea on a warm day in June in Kotzebue, Alaska.
Temperatures hit as high as 80 degrees.

Photograph by Katie Orlinsky, National Geographic

Kotzebue in particular is a hot spot in the state. Six of the ten warmest
winters in the village on record have occurred since 2000. Climatologists
say the village is likely to have more unusual heat this summer and into the
fall.

Above-average sea surface temperatures contributed to Alaska’s abnormally
warm winter when increased southerly winds flowed over the ocean and spread
inland. Next winter could be cooler, but over the long term, experts say
that warmer and wetter weather could become more common.

“The decades-long trend seems pretty clear: less and less sea ice,” says
Rick Thoman, climate science and services manager for the National Weather
Service in Alaska.

Ice coverage in Kotzebue Sound has been shrinking steadily since the 1950s,
with acceleration in recent years.

Related Content

< http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/seal-hunt-dickman>

< http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/seal-hunt-dickman>

1. Watch A Seal Hunt
< http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/seal-hunt-dickman>

“There is open water in the Chukchi Sea, almost up to Barrow now, which is
remarkably early,” Thoman says.

Seals Follow the Ice

Bearded seals, called ugruk in the Inupiaq language, migrate up and down
Alaska’s northwest coast, from the Bering Sea to the Chukchi and Beaufort
seas, following the ice as it advances in winter and retreats in summer,
says Peter Boveng, polar ecosystems program leader at NOAA’s Alaska
Fisheries Science Center.

Scientists estimate there are roughly 300,000 bearded seals in the Bering
Sea breeding population and an unknown number of others that breed in the
Chukchi and Beaufort seas in Alaska, he says. As the sea ice patterns
change, there could be changes in the places where the animals spend time,
he says.

During Kotzebue’s traditional hunting season in late June, bearded seals are
hauling out on ice. They depend on the ice to give them platforms for
basking, he says, which raises their skin temperature and stimulates hair
growth to fill out their coats. That’s what complicated the hunting; seals
will only stay in the waters near Kotzebue as long as the ice conditions are
right.

Picture of a child holding a rope attached to a dead walrus in Alaska
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Inupiat families from Barrow, Alaska, hunted for walrus instead of bearded
seal when melted sea ice ended the seal hunt abnormally early in June.
Walrus this close to town during this time of year is rare. The hunters
bring their catch to stable sea ice to butcher it and then haul it back to
town by boat.

Photograph by Katie Orlinsky, National Geographic

“If the animals are really in the peak of their molt, they will probably
want to stay with the ice. And if the ice goes out earlier in Kotzebue
Sound, Kotzebue really could see be a big decline in the number of animals
visiting that area on their way north,” Boveng says.

There is no evidence so far that the changes in the ice patterns are harming
seals. However, if they can’t find ice of the quality they need, scientists
say they might not be able to grow adequate coats, which protect their skin
from abrasions and infections, Boveng says. (Read about weird changes in
other ocean life linked to global warming.
< http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/150411-Pacific-ocean-sea-lions-b
irds-climate-warming-drought/> )

In 2011, several species of ice-dependent Alaska seals, including bearded
seals, were part of an unusual die-off
< https://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/protectedresources/seals/ice/diseased/> .
Animals turned up dead or sick with abnormal coats, among other symptoms, he
says. It is unclear whether there was a link between the event and climate
change, however.

There was once a time when Kotzebue relied on beluga whales for much of its
subsistence, says Alex Whiting, an environmental specialist for the Native
Village of Kotzebue. But then, in the 1980s, many belugas stopped coming
into the sound for reasons not entirely understood. Hunters are adaptable,
he says, and will find ways to get their seals, even if the animal patterns
change.

Picture of a person cutting seal meat in Alaska
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A woman prepared bearded seal for an annual feast in Point Hope, Alaska.

Nutritious and Spiritual

Pound for pound, caribou is the most important wild food source in Kotzebue,
followed closely by bearded seal, a nutritious, lean protein rich in omega
3s.

“Large adult bearded seals in particular provide singular types of meat and
oil products that are not replaceable,” Whiting says. “If the window to
harvest them is missed, it will be another year before the opportunity
arises again.”

Monigold says her main concern with the changing seal season is spiritual.
Taking children in the village to hunt instills in them a sense of purpose
and connects them to culture. When they take a bearded seal, for example,
she teaches her sons to put fresh water in the mouth to release the spirit
into the ocean, a gesture meant to bring more seals back the next year.
Sharing the meat teaches them respect and gives confidence.

Picture of people walking after returning from a seal hunt in Alaska
< http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2015/07/02/sealhunting/
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Because of melting sea ice, Inupiat men and boys from Barrow, Alaska,
returned to town after hunting bearded seal. The season was disappointing:
It ended early in June as the seals migrated north in search of ice.

Photograph by Katie Orlinsky, National Geographic

Schaeffer worries that if the warming trend continues, his grandchildren
will eventually lose the opportunity to hunt bearded seals in the sound. His
grandparents traveled by dogsled and relied entirely on food they caught and
gathered but so many of their traditions have been lost in a relatively
short time. Technology was the first agent of change; now it’s climate.

Seal is a soul food for indigenous Alaskans. When Monigold goes without it
and other native foods while traveling, she feels listless and looks forward
to a meal at home.

“As soon as I take a bite, it’s like all of a sudden I’m me again,” she
says.

This reporting was supported by a grant from the
< http://pulitzercenter.org/> Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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