TUKTOYAKTUK, N.W.T.  — Arctic hunters were reluctantly gathering harpoons and rifles Wednesday to kill beluga whales that have been trapped for weeks in saltwater lakes and now have only one small air hole remaining.

Although people near Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., had hoped the dozens of belugas would find their way back to the Beaufort Sea before ice blocked the way out, many didn’t make it, so hunters were planning to move in Thursday.

“We’re going to have people go out to the site and harvest as many as we can,'’ said Paul Voudrach, head of the Tuktoyaktuk hunters and trappers committee and local representative of the territorial government’s Environment Department.

About 200 beluga were first spotted in early August by hunters in the Husky Lakes area south of Tuktoyaktuk, a string of saltwater inlets which are linked to the ocean through a 100-metre-wide channel. There were still about 80 of the white, station-wagon-sized mammals left in the lakes by late October, but by then the lakes and the channel were quickly freezing over and the whales’ airhole shrinking.

Residents were cheering for the belugas to escape, despite the fact each animal could provide enough meat and muktuk — skin and blubber usually served raw — to last a couple of large families through the winter.

But a storm last weekend froze the channel solid and left the whales with a single breathing hole about the area of a one-bedroom apartment, shrinking inexorably in the Arctic cold.

“(Escape) is quite impossible now,'’ said Chuck Gruben, leader of the hunt.

Killing the whales now while they’re still in good shape is better than leaving them to slowly freeze under the ice, said Voudrach.

“(People) don’t like seeing animals suffer. Right now we’re looking to take all of them that we can.'’

Voudrach said such occurrences happen from time to time and are part of the natural cycle.

It’s hard to know how many whales are left.

“What I saw … in the hole I counted 10 at once,'’ Gruben said. “But who’s to say — there might be 10 more underneath. The only time we’ll find out is when we start pulling them out of the water.'’

Hunters will gather around the breathing hole and wait for the belugas to surface for air.

“Sooner or later they’re going to have to come up in that one hole,'’ Gruben said. “All the other breathing holes are frozen over.'’

One man will harpoon the animal and another will shoot it with a rifle. Six others will be on hand to haul the whales out of the water.

They will be butchered right there on the ice and the meat and muktuk distributed to area communities.

Although most hunters got enough whale meat during this summer’s hunting season, some could still use more, said Gruben.

“You just look at it as food on the table. If we just leave them there, they’re going to freeze and that’s not only a waste of an animal, it’s a waste of food.

“The people will be glad to get that muktuk.'’
Source: http://www.ctv.ca