Kate Stafford on the ice in Alaska, holding a hydrophone to record underwater sound.
Kate Stafford is an associate professor and principal investigator of the Marine Mammal Bioacoustics and Ecology Lab, part of the Marine Mammal Institute at Hatfield Marine Science Center. Her research focuses on the use of passive acoustic monitoring in the ocean to study marine mammals, at the intersection of animal behavior and biological and physical oceanography. She spends part of each year in the northernmost tip of Alaska.
Where were you working?
I was based in Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, which is the northernmost town in the United States.
What languages are spoken there?
English and Inupiat.
What was the focus of your work?
I was up there this fall as part of an interdisciplinary project that examines the meteorological and physical drivers of a bowhead whale feeding hotspot, referred to as the “krill trap.” Under the right wind conditions, krill get upwelled onto the shelf and trapped there in dense masses, which makes them available to westward-migrating bowhead whales in the fall.
How much time have you spent there?
I have been going to Utqiagvik for just shy of 20 years. In the fall, I work offshore on research boats deploying moorings and helping colleagues with water and zooplankton sampling, while also maintaining a marine mammal watch. In the spring, I take my hydrophone (underwater microphone) up to the ice edge to get recordings of singing bowhead whales. And every seven or eight years I participate in an ice-based census to obtain population estimates of northward-migrating bowhead whales.
Stafford and some of her local colleagues in Alaska.
What’s the best food you’ve eaten?
Pickled maktak (whale skin with blubber) is delicious, as is uunaaliq, which is fresh boiled maktak — it warms you right up if you’ve been out on the ice for hours.
For some context: Only Native subsistence hunters are allowed to harvest marine mammals. After the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed in 1972, only Alaska Native peoples were granted an exemption for subsistence. People I have met are happy and proud to share their Native foods and anyone can partake. Both the meat and skin/blubber of bowhead and beluga whales are eaten and provide critical food security in a region where there is no agriculture and all outside food has to be brought in by plane and is really expensive, so land (especially caribou) and marine (seals, whales, beluga) mammals and birds are critical to subsistence. The bowhead whale in particular has been vital to nutritional, cultural and spiritual subsistence for the Inupiat people for millennia. The population of bowhead whales that I study, the western Arctic population, is healthy and growing, largely due to excellent stewardship by Native hunters. It is the largest population of bowheads in the Arctic — each of the four populations was driven to commercial extinction in some cases as early as the 1700s by European and then American commercial whalers.
What’s the most non-touristy thing you’ve done?
I get to snowmachine out on the frozen Chukchi Sea and put my hydrophone into the water to listen. Standing on a perch made of sea ice watching for migrating bowhead whales is also pretty cool.
Stafford reclining on a snowmobile during a break from working on the ice.
What’s an important phrase you’ve learned to say in the local language?
“Quyanaqpak” — it means thank you. Also “nanuq,” which means polar bear. Useful when you see a polar bear and you want everyone on alert.
What’s one thing you’ll take away from your experience?
The Arctic in the spring is the most beautiful place on the planet. It’s stark and cold but full of life: thousands of bowheads and beluga whales migrating in open water leads in the ice, hundreds of thousands of birds migrating, and under the ice a cacophony of sounds from marine mammals.
What were you most surprised to learn?
This summer when I was up offshore, we came across more than 25 humpback whales, including females with calves. The first time I ever saw a humpback in the Beaufort was 2021 and then it was three total. Seeing a couple dozen of them was a shock because in the past, sea ice would have excluded this species from the area. This “invasion” of a subarctic species is a clear harbinger of the sea ice declines due to climate change.
Two polar bears (nanuq) in Alaska, easy to spot against the bare earth where all the snow has melted.
Who are your closest local colleagues in that area?
I work closely with the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management and am lucky enough to get to go on the ice to help build trails out to the lead edge of the ice with Inupiat colleagues.
What’s the biggest challenge of working there?
The Arctic is remote, expensive and isolated, and the weather can be rotten, all of which pose challenges.
Besides family, what did you most miss from home?
Fresh vegetables. Food is incredibly expensive in the Arctic because everything has to be brought in by airplanes.
What piece of advice would you give others who might travel there?
Remember you are on Native lands. Learn about the incredibly rich Inupiat culture before you go. Be humble, respectful, and listen to the people who have thrived in the Arctic for millennia. And try Native foods if you have the opportunity.
