Alaska Native perspective highlighted in Arctic Report Card 2019

The Arctic Report Card 2019 is out and for the first time in 13 years since the report was first issued, Alaska Native voices are being featured in the report card.

The section is called

and features input from Alaska Native Elders in eight communities around the region, which is currently experiencing an unprecedented shift in its ecosystem.

At a media presentation, Melissa Johnson, an Inupiaq from Nome and Executive Director Bering Sea Elders Group spoke on the changes that the Bering Sea elders have been noticing. For example, Johnson said that elders in the group noted that the bearded seal, known regionally as ugruk, is having less and less fat content.

Another observation that only local subsistence users could make: that the one-time delicacy of clams taken from the stomachs of walrus are no longer found inside the mammals, suggesting a broad change in the ecosystem.

Ice conditions are also causing safety concerns.

"Many areas are unsafe for travel, unsafe for hunting, unsafe for our future," she said. That's made food insecurity a major concern.

In the report, elders in Teller and Nome note that they have seen die-offs of our blue cod and tomcod, likely due to lack of food.

One elder wrote “At Wales, we counted 20 dead young ugruks from this past spring that had presumably not had enough food. Similarly, on St. Lawrence Island, we observed 50 dead spotted seals and young ugruks along a 15-20 mile stretch of beach.”

Those observations are also born out by western scientific observations. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association data, the Bering Sea region has had the largest rise in surface air temperatures of anywhere in the Arctic in 2019.

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You can read the full Arctic Report 2019