Is climate change causing the arctic food chain to unravel? By
Sharon Oosthoek © Thomas Mangelsen / Minden Pictures Remi
Foubert-Allen wanted to see killer whales for as long as he
could remember. But he was completely unprepared when they swam
past his boat in Hudson Bay near his hometown of Churchill,
Manitoba. “I can’t believe I’m looking at orcas!” he shouted
over the noise of his outboard motor. “Oh man, my dad is going
to be so jealous.” Foubert-Allen—a zodiac driver with Sea North
Tours—is understandably astonished. Killer whales in Hudson Bay
were unheard of until recently. European explorers who wrote of
their adventures in the area beginning in the early 1600s made
no mention of the whales before 1900. But between the turn of
the last century and 1960, explorers and Inuit hunters living
along the bay began reporting the odd sighting—just a handful
really. Since then, there has been a small but steady increase,
leading to a peak of 40 sightings in the last five years. Steve
Ferguson, a biologist with