Yahoo!: Meet the Arctic’s New Top Predator—Killer Whales
December 7, 2016 —
There’s no doubt that melting sea ice in Hudson Bay is threatening endangered polar bears, but it might also be harmful to beluga whales, seals, narwhals, and other marine mammals, scientists are warning.
The reason? Melting ice caused by climate change is carving huge swaths of open water for longer periods of time, providing Atlantic killer whales more access to the bay and its rich stocks of prey.
“There has been an increase in the duration of open water by about 35 percent in the last 10 to 15 years, and killer whales can now come into the bay with little to hamper them as they move around,” said David Barber, the Canada Research Chair in Arctic system science at the University of Manitoba.