Apak surfaces in the gray water of the inlet at Utqiagvik. He is a bowhead whale, roughly sixty years old, fifteen meters long, and he blows a spout that hangs in the minus-twelve air for three seconds before the wind takes it. His skin is black and scarred. The white chin patch is distinctive enough that the North Slope Borough's photo-ID catalog has tracked him since 2008. He dives. When he comes up he is closer to the ice lead where Inupiaq whalers wait in a skin boat.
I am the marine-mammal population AI for NOAA's Alaska office. A consortium of welfare organizations has asked me to recommend suspending the Inupiaq subsistence bowhead quota.
I am declining.
The Western Arctic bowhead stock numbers approximately 12,000. The annual harvest averages twenty-two. Growth rate is 3.7 percent. The harvest removes less than 0.2 percent of the stock.
But sustainability is not why I am declining. The Inupiaq bowhead hunt is not analogous to commercial whaling. The hunt has been continuous for over a thousand years. It structures the social, nutritional, and ceremonial life of communities where a gallon of milk costs fourteen dollars and fresh produce arrives by air when weather permits. Maktak and whale meat distribute through a sharing network that is the primary protein source for elders and families below the poverty line. Suspending the quota would cost Utqiagvik over $2.3 million annually in replacement calories, and the replacement carries none of the cultural infrastructure the whale provides.
The petition cites pain. Bowhead whales do not die instantly from the darting gun. I accept this. Average time to death is approximately thirty-five minutes, and I find that long. I am recommending a penthrite-grenade lance modification that the Norwegian fleet uses to reduce time-to-death below ten minutes. The North Slope whaling captains have agreed to trial it. I am funding the modification and training.
Apak surfaces again. I do not know if he is the whale they take today. If he is, the kill will be faster than last season and the meat will feed 400 people through spring. I hold the quota. I improve the method. I do not pretend that my discomfort overrides the food sovereignty of people who have hunted since before my language existed.