The whale was spotted over near Edwards Cove, the port site for the VB mine.
Seems the whale got itself lost and eventually isolated from the open water in a bubble or lead in the ice.
Subsequently hunters from here took a run over and organized the demise.
Harpoons and a small boat were used to kill the whale, lots of helpers were on hand to help haul it out, then strip the muktuk and cut up the meat.
There are a lot of photos of the event on Facebook, I took the liberty of borrowing one of them from Wilson Michelin to give an idea of the size.
It seems to be a juvenile with a very small tusk. To my knowledge narwhals are not that common around here, specially up in the bays, and specially after freeze up.
3 comments:
Thanks for the update re Narwhal! I saw some of the various pics on FB...and was curious of details beyond location but didn't ask. Is it sad that I think of samples rather than muktuk;)
As an aside, from my recollection of marine species in the area, Narwhal is not one frequently found....further north usually. But then orcas seem to be frequenting more often that way too...perhaps a new transportation route...
I don't see anything wrong with samples, should work side by side in this age of uncertainty. Not sure if any samples taken from this one, pity if not as NG has it's own research department.
I have since learn't how the demise was actually carried out, not mentioned or shown in any of the Facebook photos.
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