Greenland
HISTORICAL efforts by Greenland鈥檚 Danish colonists to promote hunting and
fishing could prove invaluable for scientists studying the impact of climate
change on Arctic marine life.
Richard Caulfield, a social scientist at the University of Alaska at
Fairbanks, is translating written records of catches of fish and marine mammals
by Greenland鈥檚 Inuit people, dating back to the late 19th century. The
statistics, compiled for the island鈥檚 Danish colonial rulers, may reveal how the
Arctic鈥檚 marine ecosystem is affected by climate change. Caulfield plans to make
the statistics available on a database.
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Denmark took possession of Greenland in 1721. Early colonists devised a
written form of the language spoken by the Inuit people of western Greenland.
Later on, the colonial government gave extra food and rifles to Inuit hunters
who caught large numbers of marine mammals. From 1873, the government insisted
on written records to verify these catches, and those of fish.
The records are unique. 鈥淣othing like this exists for anywhere else in the
Arctic,鈥� says Tom McGovern, an archaeologist at Hunter College in New York and
coordinator of the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization, an interdisciplinary
group of scientists who study Arctic issues.
The statistics give details of each Inuit鈥檚 catch, broken down by species. In
some cases, the records differentiate between catches made in the mouth of a
fjord and its interior. Caulfield thinks the statistics are accurate,
particularly in the earlier years. Communities were so small鈥攑erhaps 10
000 people scattered across all of Greenland鈥攖hat hunters鈥� successes were
known to all. 鈥淚t would be very difficult for a hunter to exaggerate,鈥� says
Caulfield.
McGovern hopes that it will be possible to correlate the catches of marine
animals with their population levels. These figures could then be compared with
records of Arctic climate to see if there is a link.
In terms of the Earth鈥檚 climatic history, 150 years is 鈥渁 small blink of an
eye鈥�, says Caulfield. But the statistics cover three climatic cycles, in which
several decades of high snowfall have been followed by several decades of lower
precipitation. By examining how the population of marine animals varied over
these repeated cycles, researchers may be able to separate changes linked to
climate from those linked to other fluctuations. This could provide clues about
how the Arctic marine ecosystem might respond to global warming.