Arctic Animals

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Arctic fox hunting on the tundra, and a fox jawbone. He's probably hunting lemmings. I looked for hours in several places to see a lemming, and never saw any. It's like trying to see a vole or gopher. If you'd like to read about arctic foxes, lemmings, caribou or musk oxen, try this link http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/html/mammals.html

Caribou at Itivdleq, Greenland. This is a good place to go camping, see caribou, musk oxen, foxes and the Greenland icecap. There's an airport, hotel and restaurant in this town. People decorate their gardens with caribou skulls. Caribou shed their hair in clumps all over the tundra.

.Musk oxen roam the tundra in the Arctic like bison roam the Great Plains farther south. People decorate their homes and porch railings with skulls. To read about musk ox wool try this link. http://www.qiviut.com

Arctic hare pellets. Arctic hares eat their food, pass it through their digestive system as these pellets, then eat them again. It's similar to cows chewing cud.

We visited a Razorbill, Kittewake, Glaucous and Iceland Gull colony by zodiac boat in Angmarqoq Fjord, Greenland. You have to watch closely that you aren't disturbing them. If they start to turn their heads, looking at you and for a place to dive off to, get away immediately, you're too close.

In a seabird colony, predators like the large Glaucous Gull are always close by and will eat unguarded eggs or chicks. Think for a minute about what it's like to be a smaller Iceland gull with a chick. Two feet away on the cliff lives a huge, predacious Glaucous Gull. This is like having a next door neighbor who's as big as a professional wrestler and is a known child cannibal. And he's been staring at your kid all day. Iceland Gulls parents take turns guarding their chicks and finding food for them.

Iceland gulls and Kittewakes hanging out in the sun, with chicks, flying, and perched atop an iceberg.

A Fulmar running across the water to get up to takeoff speed. We saw Fulmars, Kittewakes, a Black-headed Gull, a Sabines Gull, Dovekies, Murres, Puffins, Eider Ducks, a White-tailed Sea Eagle, and many other seabirds.

Snow bunting being difficult. When you approach a Snow Bunting, they fly off before you get anywhere near them. So I tried laying still in the tundra for an hour, hoping one would come close before he realized I was there. I still only got to within about 15 feet.

Lapland longspur. There were four species of small, sparrow-like birds: Lapland Longspur, Snow Bunting, Common Redpoll and Northern Wheatear. It's a tough place to be a little bird. At any time, even in summer, snow could cover your seed food supply and freeze the mosquitoes you eat too.

This rare Greenish-Blue butterfly conveniently landed on Chris' finger in front of his butterfly chart.

The local meat market had whale meat, dried and fresh fish, seal, and kittewakes (like a small seagull). The restaurant serves caribou and musk ox. They taste like beef and lamb, respectively. The Arctic char above tastes like salmon. Notice how red the whale meat is. Whales have a lot of myoglobin for carrying extra oxygen in their blood.

Seal skull. Out at sea or closer to shore, groups of ten or fifteen Harp seals would stick their black noses above the water to breathe and look around for a minute or two before diving and traveling on. 

Walrus skull. 

The Inuit people have been hunting musk oxen, whales, walrus, seals, hares and foxes for thousands of years. Animal bones are all over the tundra, shores and villages. To see animals is harder in the Arctic than the Antarctic because the animals are hunted. They flee at the first sight of people. On the other hand, the Inuit have encouraged the herds of caribou and musk ox to the point that they became over-populated in some areas and managed hunting is needed to keep the herds from over-populating and over-grazing again. The old Inuit style of hunting -- for food, not cash -- was a sustainable system. Things have changed in the last generation with the introduction of guns, motorboats, and commercial fishing and hunting. This is a big issue in the Canadian and Greenlandic governments. They're trying to balance subsistence living, commercial development and eco-tourism.

Whale vertebrae and skull. It's the back part of the skull where it passes the spinal cord into the backbone.

While traveling by ship in the Arctic you can see a lot of whales, but the number of whales you see is directly related to how much time you spend on deck looking for them. I typically spent a few hours a days looking and saw Minke, Fin, Sei, Pilot, Bottle-nosed and Humpback Whales. Also seen by others was a Blue Whale. A very interesting thing about whales, you can often tell what they are without even being close to them. They exhibit a "dive sequence" that is specific for their species. For instance, you may see a spout, then a long flat back, then a fin of a certain shape, and no tail flukes at the end. That's a Fin whale dive sequence. You can learn about whales and dive sequences in the classic book Eyewitness Handbooks: Whales Dolphins and Porpoises.

Beluga whale. Beluga whales come into Hudson Bay, Canada, where I hoped to see one. No such luck.  I took this picture at Seaworld in San Diego, California.

Polar Bear. This polar bear lives at Seaworld in San Diego, California. He had a large enclosure with a water to swim in that was chilled to 55 degrees Fahrenheit.