For a few days each June, the saltwater wind that blows over the fairgrounds in Utqiagvik, Alaska mixes with the smell of coffee, salmonberry pie and fresh whale meat. The festivities start early and end under the midnight sun during Nalukataq, the annual whaling festival. By noon, the tables at the center of the fairgrounds are filled with slabs of whale blubber, cauldrons of stew and baked goods — enough to feed the town for a month. After a prayer, crew members circle the fairgrounds and fill coolers with food. Meanwhile, captains trade turns making speeches, pumping up the crowd and singing songs into a megaphone. On the first day of last summer’s festival, one cut of whale meat was conspicuously absent from the spread. The whale kidneys, which are usually slow cooked through the morning, were sitting in wildlife veterinarian Raphaela Stimmelmayr’s laboratory eight kilometers (five miles) away at the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management. A family accepts muktuk, whale blubber, at Nalukataq in Utqiagvik, Alaska. Image by Gabe Allen for Mongabay. Stimmelmayr received the organs back in March, just hours after the Little Kupaaq whaling crew successfully harpooned a 25-ton animal. Little Kupaaq member Martin Edwardsen was in the boat that day. With the community’s help, the Little Kupaaq crew hauled the animal onto the ice and butchered the meat. But, as Edwardsen cut out the kidneys, he noticed something off. Tiny translucent worms wriggled along the surface of the organs. He set the kidneys aside…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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