Overview
- Researchers publishing in Frontiers in Marine Science estimate that roughly 4,000 humpbacks, 6,000 fin whales, and 6,000 minke whales were present in the Greenland Sea in summer 2024, totaling about 16,000 animals.
- The conclusion draws on multiple independent data streams including systematic aerial surveys in 2015 and 2024, ship sighting records dating to 1987, satellite tags from 2019–2025, and Inuit hunter reports.
- Ocean change is the main driver identified: sea-surface temperatures east of Greenland have risen about 2°C since the 1990s and the summer ice edge retreated markedly after the mid-2000s, allowing capelin to move north.
- Scientists say the whales are aggregating to feed on the northward-shifted capelin, a change the authors describe as an ongoing ecological regime shift that may force ice-associated species such as narwhals to share or lose habitat.
- There are currently no commercial capelin fisheries in the region, but the redistribution of large whales could affect local subsistence use and marine food webs and will require monitoring for impacts on coastal communities and Arctic species.