Melting sea ice off East Greenland has attracted giant whales to feed in previously inaccessible areas.
As BBC News reports, a decades-long study reached this conclusion after recording and filming the movements of hundreds of some of the world's biggest marine wildlife. These included humpbacks, minke and fin whales, which were found to be feeding in ice-free seas along the coast in summer.
None of these marine mammals was historically found in this area of Greenland before, but climate change-driven warming seas have attracted them in. Seasonal Arctic "feeding frenzies" are taking place, as part of a significant shift in the East Greenland ocean environment.
The study notes that ship-based surveys in the region did not record a single humpback whale sighting there until 2006. In 2007, researchers identified seven humpbacks, and by 2024, they had recorded 150 ship-based sightings of these giant whales.
The first systematic aerial surveys of baleen whales - a group that includes fin, minke and humpbacks - off the East Greenland coast were carried out by the researchers during the summers of 2015 and 2024.
Prof Heide-Jørgensen, from the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, told BBC News that the changes in the region were "probably the most radical we can see anywhere in the subarctic". Rising sea temperatures and food availability attracted the whales, which appear to be feeding on fish that have moved into the warming waters of East Greenland.
The scientists estimated that the three whale species would consume at least 800,000 tonnes of fish and krill during a summer feeding season.
Read BBC News here.
