Butterfly Bay & the Monumental Islands, Baffin Island, Canada
Our marine mammal extravaganza continues. Regular readers of this column will recall yesterday’s encounter with a group of killer whales (aka orca) off the southern coast of Baffin Island. This morning we awoke in Butterfly Bay, near the southeast corner of this large island. The weather at wake-up was not at all propitious but, miraculously, it improved steadily throughout the day. Our plan for a morning landing was quickly set aside when we spotted a polar bear on the near shore and two more far off at the head of the bay. Since sharing a landing with polar bears is not on our list of preferred activities, we opted for approach by Zodiac. We quietly glided past, watching the bear feeding actively on something not easily identified from a distance. The remains of a well-scavenged whale were lying on the beach below and the bear was clearly reluctant to leave the vicinity. Polar bears that are on land during the summer have very limited feeding opportunities. The remains of a whale, even a well picked-over carcass, could provide food for the bear until the winter ice forms and it can leave the land to resume its quest for seals. Our bear left the area where it was feeding and found a comfortable rock perch from which he watched us as we watched him.
We left Butterfly Bay to the bears and continued to a group of offshore islands, the Monumental Islands, in search of another iconic marine mammal of the Arctic – walrus. We found them - hundreds of walrus gathered into tight groups of perhaps sixty or so swimming close to the islands. Walrus are among the most social of all mammals, spending much of their lives in direct contact with others of their kind (the word is thigmotactic.) We often see photographs of walrus hauled out on rocks and beaches in large heaps of massive animals, each occasionally moving to scratch, roll, belch, and poke its neighbors with its ivory tusks (which adorn both males and females.) We were scarcely prepared for their frenetic activity in the water. This seeming slug of a mammal on land is remarkably graceful and active in the water, twisting, turning, and rising to release a puff of moist breath, but all the while remaining in contact with others of the group. Walrus are very dependent on Arctic sea ice over shallow water, where they can reach the bottom to feed on their favorite food, clams, so the decline in ice cover in the Arctic basin gives us reason for concern that future travelers will not be able to witness a scene such as we experienced today.
Our marine mammal extravaganza continues. Regular readers of this column will recall yesterday’s encounter with a group of killer whales (aka orca) off the southern coast of Baffin Island. This morning we awoke in Butterfly Bay, near the southeast corner of this large island. The weather at wake-up was not at all propitious but, miraculously, it improved steadily throughout the day. Our plan for a morning landing was quickly set aside when we spotted a polar bear on the near shore and two more far off at the head of the bay. Since sharing a landing with polar bears is not on our list of preferred activities, we opted for approach by Zodiac. We quietly glided past, watching the bear feeding actively on something not easily identified from a distance. The remains of a well-scavenged whale were lying on the beach below and the bear was clearly reluctant to leave the vicinity. Polar bears that are on land during the summer have very limited feeding opportunities. The remains of a whale, even a well picked-over carcass, could provide food for the bear until the winter ice forms and it can leave the land to resume its quest for seals. Our bear left the area where it was feeding and found a comfortable rock perch from which he watched us as we watched him.
We left Butterfly Bay to the bears and continued to a group of offshore islands, the Monumental Islands, in search of another iconic marine mammal of the Arctic – walrus. We found them - hundreds of walrus gathered into tight groups of perhaps sixty or so swimming close to the islands. Walrus are among the most social of all mammals, spending much of their lives in direct contact with others of their kind (the word is thigmotactic.) We often see photographs of walrus hauled out on rocks and beaches in large heaps of massive animals, each occasionally moving to scratch, roll, belch, and poke its neighbors with its ivory tusks (which adorn both males and females.) We were scarcely prepared for their frenetic activity in the water. This seeming slug of a mammal on land is remarkably graceful and active in the water, twisting, turning, and rising to release a puff of moist breath, but all the while remaining in contact with others of the group. Walrus are very dependent on Arctic sea ice over shallow water, where they can reach the bottom to feed on their favorite food, clams, so the decline in ice cover in the Arctic basin gives us reason for concern that future travelers will not be able to witness a scene such as we experienced today.
