ELSEVIER 
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Deep-Sea Research 11 I (Hll) lll-lll 
DEEP-SEA RESEARCH 
PART II 
www.elsevier.com/locate/dsr2 
Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: 
Bridging scientific and indigenous knowledge 
Igor Krupnik ' , G. Carleton Ray 
^Arctic Studies Center, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, 10th and Constitution Avenue NW, 
Washington, DC 20013, USA 
Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, 291 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA 
Received 18 January 2007; accepted 18 August 2007 
Abstract 
This paper presents and evaluates two perspectives on changing climate-walrus-human relationships in the Beringian 
region, from the viewpoints of marine biology and ecology, and from that of indigenous hunters. Bridging these types of 
knowledge is vital in order to grasp the complexity of the processes involved and for advancing understanding of subarctic 
marine ecosystems that are currently experiencing rapid ecological and social change. We argue that despite substantial 
gaps and distinctions, information generated by scientists and indigenous hunters have many similarities. Differences in 
interpretation are primarily due to scaling and temporal rates of change of knowledge, which could be rectified through 
more active sharing of expertise and records, enhanced documentation of indigenous observations, more collaborative 
research, and increased insight from the social sciences. 
? 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 
Keywords: Bering Sea; Climate change; Indigenous knowledge; Odohenus rosmarus; Walrus 
1. Introduction 
The Pacific walrus, Odobenus rosmarus divergens, 
is a critical Beringian species due to its key role in 
the Beringian ecosystem (Ray et al., 2006) and the 
extensive dependency on walruses by many indi- 
genous communities of the Northern Bering 
and Chukchi Sea shores of Alaska and Siberia 
(Krupnik, 1993). Hence, changes in walrus distribu- 
tion,  abundance,  and life cycle may be crucial 
*Corresponding author. Tel. 
fax: +1202 357 2684. 
E-mail addresses: krupniki?? 
cr@virgima.edu (G.C. Ray). 
1202 6331901; 
isi.edu (I. Krupnik), 
indicators of ecosystem change, and would certainly 
act as drivers of social change. Understanding the 
nature of these changes is made urgent by growing 
evidence of recent shifts in climate, ocean and 
atmospheric circulation, sea-ice distribution, and 
other physical-ecological parameters that seem to be 
triggering dramatic restructuring of the marine 
ecosystems of Beringia (Grebmeier et al., 2006). 
Concerns also have been expressed about negative 
impacts of these changes on northern indigenous 
communities and their biological resources (Hun- 
tington, 2000; Krupnik and Jolly, 2002; Ray and 
McCormick-Ray, 2004). 
Indigenous people have been exploiting Beringian 
marine ecosystems for at least 6000 years; walrus 
0967-0645/$ - see front matter ? 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 
doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C, Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
!!Traia???!g?a 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
hunting became the staple of local economies as 
early as 2000 years ago (Krupnik, 2000). Prior to the 
modern economic era (about the early-1900s), 
walrus hunting supphed 60-80% of all subsistence 
food consumed in many communities in the Bering 
Strait region (Krupnik, 1993). Almost every part of 
the walrus was used. The people and their dogs ate 
the flesh; tools and weapons were made from ivory 
and bone; and skins provided covers for boats and 
dwellings. People spoke of walruses in tales and 
myths, honored them in ceremonies and prayers, 
and called children and geographical places by 
names used to describe them. Thus, indigenous 
knowledge of walruses springs from millennia 
of use. 
In contrast, biologists became aware of the basics 
of Pacific walrus life history only since the mid-19th 
century, during the era of commercial whaling. 
Following the decline of whaling, whalers turned 
their attention to walruses for oil (blubber), hides, 
and tusks. The Pacific walrus population was soon 
reduced from possibly as many as 300,000 animals, 
estimated to be the carrying capacity, to about 
50,000 (Fay, 1957, 1982; Fay et al., 1989). Whaling- 
ship logbooks and statistical models indicate that 
about 200,000 walruses were killed from 1867 to 
1883, with 35,700 killed in 1876 alone (Bockstoce, 
1986; Bockstoce and Botkin, 1982; Fay et al., 1989). 
A byproduct of that slaughter was the acquisition of 
substantial knowledge of walrus life cycle and 
behavior (cf. Allen, 1880; ElHott, 1881). During 
recent decades, major gaps in knowledge have been 
closed through field observations, tagging, aerial 
counts, and work with indigenous hunters. We do 
know that sea ice is a key factor in walrus 
distribution and population dynamics, due to the 
walrus' dependency on it as a habitat for reproduc- 
tion and feeding (Fay, 1982; Fay et al., 1984; Ray 
and Hufford, 1989). Sea ice is also the feature of 
polar ecosystems most subject to rapid climate 
change (Sarmiento et al., 2004; Smetacek and Nicol, 
2005). This creates a critical need to Hnk processes 
and information about sea ice, walruses, and 
indigenous people who depend on walrus for their 
economic and social wellbeing. 
2. Current scientific understanding of walrus biology 
and ecology 
Scientific understanding of the life cycle of Pacific 
walruses is largely based on Fay's (1982) classic 
monograph,   which   summarized   what  was   then 
Fig. 1. Generalized depiction of the Pacific walrus' life cycle: 
mating occurs in the broken pack in mid-winter; calves are born 
mainly in May during the northward migration; and the 
southward migration occurs in fall. The circle in the center 
shows the timing of implantation. Adapted from Fay (1981). 
known of this species's biology and ecology 
(Fig. 1). Contrary to the general belief that walruses 
mate in the spring. Fay (1982) showed that 
ovulation and spermatogenesis occur in mid-winter. 
Behavioral observations demonstrated that mating 
is accompanied by a male "song" and occurs within 
open-water arenas surrounded by sea ice (Fay et al., 
1984). Mating occurs in winter, but implantation of 
the fertilized egg in the uterus does not occur until 
June-July of the same year, a phenomenon known 
as "delayed implantation"; thus, fetal development 
is about 10 months. Consequently, walruses are 
among the slowest reproducing of all marine 
mammals, females being capable of bearing calves 
only every second year, at most. 
What remains less clear is the spatial aspect of 
walrus life history. Research conducted during the 
past half-century, particularly through aircraft sur- 
veys and from ice-breakers, has shown that Pacific 
walruses congregate in highly patchy patterns of 
groups of hundreds to thousands of animals 
during the winter breeding season in two principal 
areas: the west-central Bering Sea southwest of 
St. Lawrence into the Gulf of Anadyr, and in 
northern Bristol Bay (Fig. 2; Fay et al., 1984; 
NOAA, 1988; Ray et al., 2006). Both areas are in 
shallow seas over the Beringian continental shelf. 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C., Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
l?HTSiaM?J?igT 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
Males, females 
and young (Nov 
Males, females 
and young (June - Oct) 
Major courtship areas 
(Jan - April) 
I Mixed herds, mostly 
females and young 
(June - October)  
o Villages 
? Land haulout sites 
Fig. 2. Generalized seasonal distribution patterns and annual 
migration routes of Pacific walruses in Beringia, showing summer 
and winter concentrations. Black dots indicate male walrus 
summer haulout sites; open circles indicate hunting and 
monitoring villages. From Fay (1982), NOAA (1988), Ray 
et al. (2006), Garlich-Miller and Burn (1999); G.L. Hunt, 
personal communication. 
rich in clams and otiier bentliic invertebrates that 
constitute food for walruses. The major habitat 
southwest of St. Lawrence is dominated by an ice 
type called "broken pack", thick ice that is 
generously interspersed by leads and polynyas, 
allowing access from ice to water and back again 
at all conditions of wind and weather (Ray and 
Hufford, 1989; Ray et al., 2006). Bristol Bay is not a 
major area of broken pack, but does contain sea ice, 
thick and extensive enough to support groups of 
walruses. Separating these two areas is a broad, 
north-south band of "rounded pack" extending 
from the Bering Strait to Nunivak Island that, due 
to opposing currents and winds, is densely concen- 
trated and lends only very limited access to open 
water. This rounded pack divides walrus sea-ice 
habitat and the two major winter concentrations, 
strongly suggesting a "metapopulation" structure, 
with the possibility of limited genetic interchange 
among individuals in winter during the breeding 
season. However, direct proof of subpopulations of 
Pacific walruses awaits further research. 
Keys to resolving uncertainties of population 
structure concern sea-ice dynamics and migration 
patterns. After the breeding season, adult males and 
adult females with subadults and newborns, begin 
to move to separate destinations (Fig. 2). By calving 
time, adult females, younger animals, and a few 
adult males move northward with the retreating 
pack ice from the vicinity of St. Lawrence Island to 
the Bering Strait; by late June-July, they are 
distributed mainly in the eastern and western 
Chukchi Sea. The great majority of adult males, 
on the other hand, head for land haulout sites in 
Bristol Bay, the Gulf of Anadyr, and north and 
south on the Chukchi Peninsula, where they remain 
until September or October (Jay and Hills, 2005; 
Mymrin et al., 1990). Thus, females mostly inhabit 
sea ice all year long, whereas for males it is only 
during fall through spring. 
In early fall, annual sea ice again begins to form, 
first in the northern Chukchi Sea, then extending 
rapidly southward, soon making the Chukchi Sea 
and the Bering Strait region inhospitable for 
wintering walruses. Contrary to the northward 
migration in spring, walruses probably swim south- 
ward ahead of the freezing pack or with young ice 
too thin to bear their weight. These annual move- 
ments make good sense. The separation of the sexes 
during summer affords maximal access to food 
throughout Beringia; the spring migration with the 
ice gives walruses a platform for birthing and rest; 
and the fall migration ahead of the freezing pack 
reduces the risk that individuals may become 
trapped. But how groups of a thousand or more 
walruses become associated with extensive, thick 
winter ice sufficient to bear their weight remains 
unknown. We do know from aerial surveys and 
natives' observations that from September to 
December, depending on variations in weather and 
sea-ice formation, the herds assemble in the vicinity 
of St. Lawrence Island, especially around the Punuk 
Islands southeast of the Island. However, even if 
some sea ice were present at that time, it would be 
generally too thin to support them. Thus, the 
walrus' only recourse is to haul out on land to rest. 
There, from November through December or 
January, walruses await the formation of thick 
broken pack near their land haulouts. Thus, we may 
reasonably assume that when thick ice forms in their 
vicinity, walruses occupy it in groups, and then 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C., Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
!!Traia???!g?a 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
move with the "conveyor beh" (Pease and Over- 
land, 1984) of sea ice to the central Bering Sea. As 
for the Bristol Bay group, no direct information is 
yet available. It is likely that these walruses take 
advantage of sea ice as it moves in the direction of 
Bristol Bay. 
From an ecological perspective, the Pacific walrus 
appears to be a key species within Beringia. Walruses 
are major consumers of benthic fauna, annually 
consuming an estimated 2-3 milUon metric tons of 
benthic biomass, or as much as the entire Bering Sea 
fishery (Fay, 1982; Ray et al, 2006). Another major 
effect of walrus feeding is 'bioturbation' (disturbance 
of the benthic environment), which occurs over 
thousands of km^yr"' (Nelson and Johnson, 1987). 
This annual to multi-year walrus bioturbation has the 
potential to result in significant, large-scale ecological 
changes, such as alterations of both sediment and 
biological-community structure (Born et al., 2003; 
Oliver et al., 1983). Additionally, the release of 
nutrients from sediment pore water by bioturbation 
is locally about two-orders of magnitude greater than 
background release, with possible effects on local to 
regional production processes (Ray et al., 2006). 
The above effects strongly suggest that if the 
habitats and movements of walruses were to be 
fundamentally altered by climate change or other 
factors, so would the ecological functions that 
walruses perform in Beringia. That is, should 
arctic-subarctic sea ice continue to diminish, as 
most of current climate models predict (ACIA, 
2004), walrus's sea-ice habitat would be reduced 
such that their access to feeding habitat would also 
be greatly reduced. It follows that the walrus' key 
ecological roles would be redistributed, diminished, 
or lost, with the strong probabihty that Beringian 
ecosystem processes could be significantly altered. 
Already, Grebmeier et al. (2006) have observed a 
northward shift in Beringian communities and 
productivity that could have profound effects on 
commercial and subsistence use. 
3. Indigenous hunters' knowledge 
Arctic and subarctic subsistence communities 
were always strategically positioned to take advan- 
tage of local resources. Gambell at the northwestern 
tip of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, about 200 km 
south of the Bering Strait (Fig. 3), offers a good 
example of a location assured of dependabihty of 
abundant migrating marine mammals and birds. 
Proof of this is found on GambeU's gravel spit 
Fig. 3. Aerial view of Cape Sivuqaq, with the Sivugaq (Gambell) 
Mountain and the village of Gambell. Photograph by G.C. Ray 
1999, from the panel photo at Sivuqam Inc., Gambell, Alaska. 
where lie the remains of two millennia of human 
history and remains of innumerable walruses, 
whales, and seals taken by local hunters. Through 
the narrow body of water at the junction of Alaska 
and Siberia, where Gambeh sits, passes one of the 
world's greatest mammal migrations. The timing 
and sequences of migrating species is critical. 
Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) are normally 
first to pass from mid-April to early May when 
heavy sea ice is moving northward under influences 
of winds and ocean currents. Herds of walruses with 
their calves, as well as bearded seals {Erignathus 
barbatus), soon follow, from late April to early 
June. Finally, with late spring ice in May-June 
come the other seals?ringed {Phoca hispida), 
spotted {Phoca largha), and ribbon (Phoca fasciata)? 
together with one of the world's greatest concentra- 
tions of seabirds. Gambeh hunters claim that with 
this last wave of marine wildhfe comes a second 
group of migrating walruses. 
Subsistence hunters talk about walruses in many 
ways. First, hunters use many more terms for 
specific age-sex categories and groupings of 
walruses associated with sea ice than biologists 
usually recognize. For example, Yupik hunters of 
St. Lawrence Island use almost a hundred terms for 
various types of walruses, walrus products, and 
related phenomena.' Often one term condenses a 
comprehensive package of information about age. 
W. Walunga, C. Noongwook, C. Koonooka, Ayveghem 
Yupigestun Aatqusluga. St. Lawrence Island Yupik Walrus Dic- 
tionary. I. Krupnik (Ed). Illustrated manuscript produced under the 
project 'Sea-Ice Associations of Pacific Walruses' (2004). All Yupik 
terms and definitions for the various types of walruses used in this 
paper are taken from the entries in the 'dictionary.' 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C, Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research II (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
l?HTSiaM?J?igT 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
sex, and size of the walrus grouping, its association 
witii ice, and its direction of movement. Because of 
this, hunters may identify a particular walrus or a 
certain group of animals with very high precision, as 
seen from the following: 
Ayughaayak?in the springtime, when there is no 
solid pack ice anymore, the walrus mostly 
consisting of bulls would head towards land 
from out of Qayilleq to sometimes around 
Kangii [on the northern side of St. Lawrence 
Island]. They would get on the shore-fast ice, or 
former shore-fast ice in great numbers. Their 
stomachs are usually filled with clams.... Those 
are usually big bulls that we can see north to 
northeast from Savoonga in the springtime, 
usually in late May and early June. They are 
normally on ice but may be also on open water 
with some ice floes (Chester Noongwook, 2004). 
In spite of a sophisticated nomenclature, sub- 
sistence hunters do not view the walrus as going 
through a well-defined annual hfe cycle. Nor do 
they have a comprehensive view of the regularly 
changing seasonal age-sex groupings, akin to the 
scientists' perspective. To them, walruses are always 
around somewhere; that is, if walruses are not seen 
nearby they will reappear again in due time. What 
really matters to indigenous experts is when each of 
the many specific groupings arrives in a given year, 
so that the walruses may be hunted. The hunters 
may be curious about where walruses go, but their 
direct experience is local. So, as walruses move 
northward to the Chukchi Sea in June or southward 
to the southern Bering Sea in December, hunters in 
the Bering Strait communities have only rather 
vague perceptions of their seasonal distribution. 
Since walruses appear near St. Lawrence Island in 
great numbers in spring and fall, their arrival marks 
key dates in the hunters' annual calendar. Hunters 
usuafly claim that the "walrus calendar" begins in 
mid-fall, when walruses arrive on their southbound 
migration after a long summer's absence: 
Usually it starts upon here in November.... 
That's what we call anleghaq [fall walrus migrat- 
ing south]. That's when the pack comes down 
and the herd, the big herd passes through the 
island. When the ice pack gets close to the island. 
They are coming from the deep North, from 
somewhere above the Arctic Circle. They just 
come straight from north along the ice pack, 
fresh new ice coming again. This is how it looks 
to us. That ice would be about a foot thick. These 
are mostly females and young bulls; females have 
their yearhngs. No big buUs yet, maybe one or 
two in between. The big bufls come after that. So, 
it's mostly females and yearlings, unkuvalget 
[females with young walruses, unkuvak]. That's 
the kind of walrus that's coming here in 
November (Aaron Iworrigan?February 2004, 
Gambell).^ 
Thus, to the hunters, walruses come and go in 
particular groups, each specific to a certain location 
or season. St. Lawrence Island hunters are well 
aware that most fall walruses {anleghaq) usually 
move to the Punuk Islands, where they come ashore 
{uugta, walrus on land). Some fall walruses, how- 
ever, stay for the whole winter along the northern 
side of St. Lawrence Island and may be pursued by 
hunters in sea-ice leads, polynyas, or through 
breathing holes. In winter, more walruses seem to 
the hunters to be concentrated along the southern 
and western shore of the island, where they may be 
encountered either as small groups resting on ice 
{nunaavak, pi. nunaavaget) or as mixed group of 
females and young bulls on drifting ice {iwaagutaq). 
These observations support the hunters' view that 
walruses do not disappear from the St. Lawrence 
vicinity in winter, for some broken ice and occa- 
sional walruses are always present in the area. 
With the spring migration, starting in late April, 
the big herds reappear en masse once again. 
According to hunters, groups on ice usually arrive 
in waves, known under specific terms, qaakneq (pi. 
qaakneghet, groups of walruses traveling on top of 
drifting ice floes) or unegyuuq: (big concentrations 
of primarily female walruses west of Gambell) in 
ice-free water. Traveling spring walruses {qaakneq) 
may come in several forms, such as qaakneghlak 
(big herd on ice), or qaakneghpaghqu (many groups 
on ice floes). The largest concentration that occurs 
very rarely is called qiighqaghsiiq?literally like an 
island. Finally, a late spring wave of primarily 
young females arrives. Those female walruses 
{qavreq) travel in small groups, usually with some 
calves and yearlings. They are the last to move 
northward in early or mid-June, after most sea ice 
has gone. In hunters' words, they usually do not see 
walruses off St. Lawrence Island after this last wave 
moves north, or until the arrival of the mixed herd 
^All quotations from subsistence hunters cited in this paper 
were recorded from taped interviews in Gambell and Savoonga, 
St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, between 1999 and 2004. 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C., Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
!!Traia???!g?a 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
{anleghaq) in fall. Hunters do not know where 
walruses go when they pass beyond the Bering 
Strait; unUke biologists, they are not usually 
concerned with questions that are beyond their 
observation range. 
Similarly, hunters are usually specific about the 
particular age-sex composition of each group of 
walruses, but their explanations for why these 
groups are formed or for the factors that influence 
walrus migration are different from those of 
biologists. Hunters may simply say that "there are 
more bulls on the Siberian side than we have here" 
or that there is always "a concentration of adult bull 
walruses off Savoonga (ayughaayak) in springtime," 
when females with calves are passing by Gambell. 
Whereas walrus biologists interpret walrus groups 
in terms of population dynamics (e.g.. Fay et al., 
1989), to hunters the groups they see are outcomes 
of specific winds, currents, and ice conditions that 
occur in specific combinations each season or each 
year. Additionally, a typical hunter's account is 
always year- and site-specific, with little relevance to 
variability of the whole population. In the hunters' 
view, if the hunting is bad in one place it might be 
good elsewhere, although experienced hunters may 
caUbrate their accounts to include reference to 
changing conditions: 
Walrus hunting was different [in Gambell] this 
past spring. It was very short and we got less 
walrus this past year, because they were all gone 
very quickly following the ice up North. Because 
the ice melted too fast, the walruses moved faster 
and in shorter time than usual. When I was 
young, we used to start hunting for migrating 
walruses in June, and this was mostly for 
migrating bufls that stayed on the eastern side 
of the Gambell Mountain. This spring, the 
walrus hunting started much earlier and it ended 
up in the last part of May, because the walruses 
were already too far away up North, for our 
hunters to go after them (Conrad Oozeva, in 
Oozeva et al., 2004). 
As a result of long association with walruses, the 
depth of natural-history knowledge, coupled with 
environmental observation that many hunters have 
attained, is remarkable: 
The current we have here moves almost around 
St. Lawrence Island; it is a clockwise current. 
Most of the animals we have here follow this 
clockwise    movement    around    St.    Lawrence 
Island. The bowhead whales do this in spring, 
when they move from the Southeast Cape to 
Pugughileq at the Southwest Cape to Gambell, 
and then through the strait between the island 
and Siberia. The walruses also foUow this clock- 
wise movement; this is why we have walruses 
always after they have them in Gambell. Even the 
birds travel this way from west to east, but only 
in the morning. I have seen them so many times 
flying from the side of Gambell and further 
northeast. In the evening they come back and 
they travel counterclockwise, from here back to 
Gambe? area.... 
We also have two kinds of walruses here, around 
our island. The scientists caU it 'Pacific walrus'; 
but we know that there are two of them, and we 
have two different names in our language. One is 
called aiwam ayveq?the 'northern walrus.' It 
always foflows the ice when it moves north. It is 
bigger, wider, and its skin is lighter, like when 
the walruses spend several days in water, they 
come out like pale. There is also ughqa ayveq? 
southerly walrus; it is shorter, smaller, and it has 
darker color. This walrus stays here, around the 
island. These are different types?both buUs and 
cows. The northern walrus always goes north 
with the ice, when it moves north. So, these days 
we are getting more and more southerly walrus; 
we are seeing more of these walruses all the time. 
We were told that this southerly walrus used to 
stay in wintertime on some island?we do not 
know where it is and do not have the name for 
this island in our language. It may be somewhere 
in the Aleutians Islands, we do not know...So, 
now this southerly walrus is coming closer to our 
island, because of the changing weather condi- 
tions. But we rarely see the northern walrus 
anymore (Chester Noongwook, in Oozeva et al., 
2004). 
Finally, environmental concerns are very much 
on hunters' minds. There is much nostalgia about 
the 'good old days', but explanations of change can 
be very modern: 
The pattern [of walrus migration] is not the same 
today anymore like it used to be because of the 
climate change and the ice conditions have 
changed and the animals are affected by this 
global warming thing. That is sad to say. I think 
we are more adversely affected here because our 
walrus and whaling seasons are short, because of 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C., Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
l?HTSiaM?J?igT 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
inclement weather.... When I was growing up 
and later on as an adult hunting with my dad, we 
used to have good weather all the time" (Leonard 
Apangalook, Sr., Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, 
in Metcalf, 2003). 
To summarize, indigenous hunters' knowledge is 
usually drawn from local observations; it always 
includes references to weather, wind, currents, and 
sea-ice conditions. The hunters' breadth of sea-ice 
knowledge is not less remarkable than that for 
walruses, and hunters' sea-ice terminologies also 
exceed the lexicon used by scientists (George et al., 
2004; Nelson, 1969; Nichols et al., 2004; Oozeva 
et al., 2004). This attention to detail and hunters' 
localized perspective contrast strongly with the 
scientists' usual focus on larger-scale phenomena. 
In contrast, scientists' reliance on statistically 
derived weather and climate information, annual 
sea-ice patterns and charts drawn from satellite 
imagery has no parallels in the Native toolkit. 
4. Walrus and ayveq 
OveraU, walrus biologists and St. Lawrence 
Island hunters agree on many basic points of walrus 
biology and ecology, including: seasonal differences 
in distribution and abundance; separation into 
different groupings; and two seasonal peaks of 
abundance around St. Lawrence Island. The hun- 
ters' observation of the timing of two spring waves 
of walruses (Metcalf, 2003) is also similar to the 
scientific possibiUty that the Pacific walrus is 
structured as a "metapopulation," as both views 
are supported by sea-ice dynamics. It is little wonder 
that these sets of knowledge are similar, as they 
derive from similar long-term data-collection pro- 
cesses, and, often, in the same natural setting. 
Despite these similarities, differences in interpre- 
tations remain profound. There is no 'silver bullet' 
in bridging these two very different types of 
knowledge, as the accounts on what biologists 
name 'Pacific walrus' and hunters call ayveq often 
have little correspondence with each other. This 
offers room for a third perspective that may usefully 
come from anthropologists who have explicit 
interests in explaining how hunters' knowledge 
('traditional ecological knowledge' or TEK) is 
generated. Anthropologists are also concerned with 
'bottlenecks' in the indigenous knowledge transmis- 
sion process, how hunters' environmental knowl- 
edge is currently changing, and why. These and 
other similar issues may be critical when trying to 
bridge biologists' and hunters' knowledge. 
4.1. Scaling: how "local" is local? 
Most arctic biological and ecological data collec- 
tion depends on highly sophisticated technology, 
such as satelhte imagery, computer mapping, aerial 
counts, icebreakers, helicopters, and radio-telemetry 
used to track migrations across broad regional 
scales. The data collected are used to build long- 
term, large-spatial-scale scenarios of species' dis- 
tributions and models of population dynamics. 
Subsistence hunters have little of this (Berkes, 
1999; Callaway, 2004), but they compensate with a 
depth of local observation. The potential scientific 
power of an arctic subsistence hunters' monitoring 
system is substantial. More than a thousand Native 
subsistence hunters from 18 Alaskan communities 
hunt walruses every year, and several hundred more 
live on the Siberian side (Fig. 2); this does not 
include several hundred elders, who maintain their 
expertise and who actively participate in observa- 
tion and knowledge sharing. During hunting, each 
walrus must be spotted, chased, killed, and butch- 
ered?usually several hours of hard work (Nelson, 
1969). At least 5000-6000 walruses are now killed 
each year by Native hunters in Alaska and 
Chukotka (MMC, 2003). Many more are observed 
but not chased, killed but not retrieved, or not 
reported as catch. Each walrus hunt thus contri- 
butes several hours of observations to hunters' 
knowledge of walrus biology, behavior, population 
health, and ice and weather conditions. Every 
walrus butchered also can be a study of body 
status, condition, stomach contents, and other 
factors, such as disease and parasite load (Fig. 4). 
If anything unusual is found, the information is 
shared with other hunters and elders, and any case 
out of the ordinary is often extensively discussed. 
Also, hunters' records are temporally continuous 
from year to year and their observations usually 
cover the same sites (areas) and often the same ani- 
mal groupings over many years, even generations. 
Therefore, one would expect to find differences 
between scientific and indigenous knowledge in 
scaling, that is, in ways of interpreting natural 
phenomena at different spatial and temporal levels. 
For example, hunters' views of two types of walrus 
off St. Lawrence Island, named 'northern' and 
'southern' walruses offer evidence to support the 
concept of a possible metapopulation structure of 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C., Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
!!Traia???!g?a 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
Fig. 4. St. Lawrence Island hunters butcher a male walrus killed 
in floating spring ice off Gambell, Alaska. Each walrus carcass is 
carefully examined for body status, signs of parasites and/or 
internal sickness. Photograph by G.C. Ray, Circa 1963. 
the Pacific walrus population. Hunters' geographi- 
cal knowledge, however, is too limited to corrobo- 
rate this assumption across the entire species' range. 
Even though biologists are attentive to local 
variations in walrus behavior and distribution, their 
broader framework and reliance on large-scale 
modeling and statistics may leave them uncertain 
about the value of hundreds of local details that 
come with subsistence hunters' perspectives. 
The integration of different scales of observations 
in those and many similar cases will obviously 
require a long-term accommodation of two different 
levels of data 'resolution.' It may most naturally 
come from cooperation over specific matters of high 
mutual concerns?for example, the ongoing shifts in 
walrus habitats due to sea ice and climate change, or 
the increased safety risks due to earlier ice break-ups 
and unstable winter ice cover. Such collaboration of 
two types of knowledge, from hunters and scientists, 
has already been sought in the studies of shore-fast 
ice dynamics, ice formation, sea-ice and weather 
observations (George et al., 2004; Nichols et al., 
2004; Krupnik, 2002; Norton, 2002). In matching 
hunters' knowledge and scientists' perspectives, 
both sides will have to integrate the different 
temporal and spatial resolutions of their respective 
records. 
4.2. Knowledge change 
Scientific information is highly dynamic and is 
advancing rapidly. In contrast, the body of data 
typical for indigenous knowledge is based on long- 
term personal observations and elders' memories. 
and thus changes very slowly (Callaway, 2004; 
Nadasdy, 1999). The speed of 'modernization' and 
change has been central to many discussions of 
indigenous knowledge among social scientists for 
more than a decade (Berkes, 1999; Krupnik and 
Vakhtin, 1997; Nadasdy, 1999; Ohmagari and 
Berkes, 1997; Wenzel, 1999). 
Although the body of scientific information on 
the Pacific walrus changed increasingly from the late 
1800s to the mid-1900s (see above), the dynamics of 
hunters' knowledge has been totally different. If one 
were to ask hunters of the 1800s about walruses, the 
observational side of their knowledge would prob- 
ably be similar to that of today. But the explanatory 
framework would have had little correspondence to 
what we normally hear from modern hunters. There 
would have been no references to thinning of sea ice, 
walrus population health, over-hunting, and bad 
weather, to say nothing of global climate change. 
Rather, walrus behavior would have been explained 
in terms of breaking traditional taboo regulations, 
of bad human treatment of walruses, and of 
disrespect (or low respect) for their spirits. Old 
interpretations would feature stories about people 
who did not "clean walrus bones on the beach" or 
some reckless youth who "skinned a baby walrus 
alive and let it go" and thus offended the animal's 
spirit. These were all stories recorded by early 
visitors and preserved in some legends of today (cf. 
Crowell and Oozevaseuk, 2006; Krupnik and 
Vakhtin, 1997). 
Actually, today the knowledge of subsistence 
hunters is, perhaps, changing faster than scientists' 
knowledge. The generation of elders that once held 
traditional worldviews and beliefs is mostly gone. 
Present-day elders are typically devout Christians 
who attended government schools. Many are highly 
literate and skilled in using modern equipment, 
including satelhte phones, radios, and computers. 
Alaskan subsistence hunters have been working 
closely with wildhfe biologists for over a half- 
century and they are now quite familiar with the 
biologists' views and studies. Many hunters go to 
scientific meetings; they interact with wildlife 
speciaHsts at various policy conferences and joint 
co-management committees; and they watch scien- 
tific visual materials, PowerPoint presentations, 
videos, and computer animations. 
As the elderly generation of today's subsi- 
stence hunters is being replaced by younger cohorts, 
the new generations of primarily bilingual, better- 
educated  and  travel-seasoned  northern  residents 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C, Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
l?HTSiaM?J?igT 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
will, probably, add even more information and 
perspectives borrowed from scientists into the 
hunters' knowledge system. Ten or 20 years from 
now, those two knowledge systems may be much 
closer than they are today?at the expense of more 
traditional, local portions of hunters' knowledge. 
The discourse between scientists and hunters then 
may be about ecosystems, global warming, game 
management, metapopulations, and similar issues 
taken fully from the scientists' hst, but hopefully 
augmented by the indigenous hunter's knowledge 
base. 
5. Conclusions 
It appears obvious that climate warming will 
promote cascades of change, which in combination 
have the potential to alter patterns and processes of 
Beringian production and utilization by indigenous 
peoples. A foremost question is: What is to be 
gained by integration of scientific and indigenous 
knowledge? The response seems obvious: better 
understanding of local to regional biological and 
ecological conditions, and a transition into more 
powerful decision-making on the part of indigenous 
peoples. In fact, both processes are well underway, 
particularly in Canada, where the use of indigenous 
people's knowledge in resource management deci- 
sions is already a mandatory practice under 
Canada's 'Ocean Strategy' of 2002 (Myers et al., 
2005). This strongly suggests a substantial potential 
for knowledge sharing and monitoring, which may 
expand beyond the required reporting of walrus 
take (and losses) and hunter compliance that so far 
has been the main pattern of information 'sharing' 
in Beringian walrus management system in both the 
US and Russia (Burn, 1998; Garlich-Miller and 
Burn, 1999). 
The benefits of knowledge sharing are by no 
means trivial, for they relate directly to the major 
scientific issue of Beringia?climate change. As- 
sumptions about Beringian resiliency have recently 
been brought into question by abundant evidence 
that climate warming is occurring and is affecting 
the entire Beringian ecosystem, including walruses 
(Grebmeier et al., 2006; Sarmiento et al., 2004; 
Smetacek and Nicol, 2005; Ray et al., 2006). A 
major regime shift and a cascade of consequent 
effects appear inevitable. Specifically with respect to 
walruses, the combined effects of their feeding and 
population health must be placed in the context of 
long-term regional climate changes and responses. 
This is particularly important, since sea ice works as 
a control mechanism on walrus distribution (Ray 
et al., 2006). As atmospheric and ocean circulation 
shift and climate warms, winter ice gets thinner and 
less concentrated and does not advance as far south 
as usual. As a consequence, the distribution of 
broken pack ice is fundamentally changed in both 
extent and position. In spring and summer, the ice 
breaks up earlier and retreats more rapidly. 
Additionally, a cUmate feedback occurs, in which 
shrinking summer ice cover exacerbates polar 
warming. The Arctic is now moving rapidly towards 
an ice-free summer regime, which has been the 
"normal" condition only for the subarctic (e.g., 
Bering Sea). In rough agreement with observations, 
many?but not all?climate simulation models 
predict that a transition to seasonal sea ice will 
occur, with very little or almost no summer ice over 
the Arctic Ocean by the end of this century (ACIA, 
2004; Lindsay and Zhang, 2005; Overpeck et al., 
2005). 
The subsistence hunter is an important element in 
this cascade of events. If projections are correct, 
there may be Uttle ice and too few walruses to hunt 
in the near future, and even if there are some 
walruses, they will pass by more rapidly and farther 
from Native communities. Local hunters and elders 
have expressed their grave concerns about shrinking 
ice and their endangered subsistence economies and 
cultures. Those concerns are widely shared across 
the polar regions (cf. Noongwook, 2000; Pungowiyi, 
2000; Fenge, 2001; Krupnik and Jolly, 2002; 
Metcalf, 2003). Of all participants in current climate 
change debates, indigenous hunters are the parties 
that have most to lose. As many northern sub- 
sistence cultures are already going through pain- 
ful transitions in their annual cycle, hunters' 
anxieties must be addressed and their concerns duly 
documented. 
This brings us back to our major point, namely, 
that the present pool of 'operational' knowledge of 
the Pacific walrus remains unbalanced as to the level 
of representation of the views of scientists and 
indigenous hunters. In today's discussions of 
climate change, of its impacts and indicators, the 
voices of indigenous experts are greatly under 
represented. Fully incorporating those voices into 
research regimes and policy debates would be a 
major step toward a more equal dialog and a 
partnership built on data-sharing and mutual 
respect (Berkes, 2002; Fenge, 2001). Therefore, 
intensified efforts are needed to bridge the scientific 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C., Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
!!Traia???!g?a 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
and indigenous records of sea ice, walruses, and 
changes in human-animal relationships?very much 
as had been done earher regarding local knowledge 
of smah-scale fishermen (Berkes, 1999; Maurstad, 
2004; Neis and Felt, 2000) and/or indigenous 
medicinal and edible plant-users (DeValt, 1994; 
Kuhlein and Turner, 1991). 
In fact, the most insightful example of how this 
bridge may be built may come from current 
collaboration and data sharing between marine 
biologists studying the Western Arctic Bowhead 
whale (B. mysticetus) and indigenous subsistence 
whalers in Alaska and Siberia, who hunt whales 
under quotas set by the International Whaling 
Commission. From the late 1970s, subsistence 
hunters increasingly have been brought into the 
whale-monitoring and census-taking system created 
by marine scientists, and their knowledge has been 
included in scholarly publications on an ever- 
growing scale. This has significantly increased our 
understanding of bowhead whale biology and 
behavior. For example, hunters' observations have 
confirmed the existence of a separate Bowhead 
whale stock, or 'sub-population' that migrates to 
the western Chukchi Sea in summer time (Bogo- 
slovskaya, 2003), a fact long contested by many 
biologists. Hunters' knowledge also helped to 
establish the critical role of wind strength and 
direction as the key factors that determine the 
timing and pace of whale migration (George et al., 
2003). Again, biologists commonly focus on sea ice, 
food webs, and age-sex structure as the key 
parameters of whale ecology, while wind direction 
during the time of migration is commonly omitted. 
As we have pointed out in this paper, subsistence 
hunters have many similar ideas regarding Pacific 
walrus ecology, such as the existence of 'northern' 
and 'southern' walruses off St. Lawrence Island, or 
the combined role of sea ice, winds, and currents as 
factors in determining walrus distribution. Hunters' 
knowledge, however, has yet to be tested. An even 
more critical issue concerns the readiness of 
management agencies to invest adequate resources 
into the documentation of hunters' knowledge. In 
the case of the Bowhead whale, it took almost two 
decades to forge the lasting partnership between the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
(NOAA) and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commis- 
sion (AEWC) in support of documentation of 
whalers' knowledge. With the Pacific walrus, the 
process is stiU in its initial stage, in Alaska and 
Russia afike. 
General recognition is also lacking that indigen- 
ous knowledge follows many of the same intellec- 
tual and analytical steps as modern science, though 
in its own specific way. Much like scholarly 
research, many hunters make observations and 
process their data into information. However, true 
experts, such as Conrad Oozeva, who knows 100 
terms for various types of sea ice, or Chester 
Noongwook, who can explain the routes of marine 
mammal migrations around St. Lawrence Island, 
are exceptional. It is these experts and their unique 
and multifaceted knowledge of Beringian ecology 
that is our shared treasure. As such, efforts by many 
interested parties are needed, so that this treasure is 
fully accounted, respected, and put to use by Native 
communities, scholars, and management agencies 
alike. 
Acknowledgments 
This paper is based upon several decades of the 
authors' interaction and collaborative research with 
local hunters in the Bering Strait region, as a 
cultural anthropologist (IK) and a walrus biologist 
(CR). We are grateful to the Pacific Walrus 
Conservation Fund and the National Fish and 
Wildhfe Foundation for support of our pilot 
project, "Sea Ice Associations of Pacific Walruses" 
(2003-2004); to the Eskimo Walrus Commission in 
Nome for its endorsement of our work with 
Alaskan subsistence hunters; and to two anon- 
ymous reviewers for their comments to this paper. 
We offer special thanks to the Yupik elders and 
heritage experts who participated in our project: 
Chester Noongwook, Conrad Oozeva, Aaron Iwor- 
rigan, Winfred James, Sr., WilHs Walunga, Clarence 
Waghiyi, Alexander Akeya, and Christopher Koo- 
nooka. We are grateful to our colleagues, Noel 
Broadbent, and Ernest S. Burch Jr., as well as to 
Ken Drinkwater and George L. Hunt for their 
valuable remarks on an earlier draft of this paper. 
The paper is dedicated, first, to the memory of the 
late Lawrence Kulukhon {Qilleghquun, 1896-1970) 
of Gambell, who mentored one of us (CR) on the 
St. Lawrence Island Yupik tradition of subsistence 
walrus hunting and weather observations in the 
1960s, and second, to Dr. Francis H. "Bud" Fay, of 
the University of Alaska who initiated modern 
scientific studies of Pacific walruses during the 
1950s. 
This paper was first presented in the GLOBEC- 
ESSAS Symposium on "Effects of climate variability 
Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C., Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research 11 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011 
l?HTSiaM?J?igT 
/. Krupnik, G. C. Ray / Deep-Sea Research III ("llli; Ill-Ill 
on sub-arctic marine ecosystems", hosted by PICES in 
Victoria, BC, May 2005. 
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Please cite this article as: Krupnik, I., Ray, G.C, Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and 
indigenous knowledge. Deep-Sea Research II (2007), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.08.011