Chukotkan hunters noting warmer winters, new animals

A Chukothan hunter who surveyed Chukchis, Yupiks and Russians in seven communities in the Russian peninsula, has found that people in Chukotka’s coastal communities are seeing signs of climate change.

Vladilen Kavry conducted the interviews with support from the World Wildlife Federation.

People commented on changing weather patterns and on the increased unpredictability and instability of the weather. They noted shorter winters, observing that the fall-winter transition is occurring later and spring weather arriving earlier — a full month on both ends of the winter period.

Magtagin, a 71 year-old Chukchi hunter from the village of Vankarem on the peninsula’s Arctic coast, said winter was beginning a full two months later. He said that while the winter frosts had previously begun in September, they were now really only starting in November.

Magtagin, and many other survey participants, also noted the weather that either did not occur previously, or occurred only very rarely, such as frequent thunderstorms.

Anatoly Ranavtagin, 64, a hunter from Lorino, on the peninsula’s eastern Bering Sea coast, said there were very strong snowstorms and blizzards in winter, as well as wintertime rains.

“In years past, the winter was cold, but calm,” said Ranavtagin. “Now, easterly winds carrying blizzards are more prominent, and for several days at a time. Snow is more abundant. There were never such snow banks in the village before. Only in December do we head to the ice edge to hunt, while previously we left in November. Sometimes there are periods of thaw and rains in the winter.”

The extent of sea ice has declined and its quality and timing are changing. In the village of Sireniki, one of the few remaining Yupik settlements in Chukotka, Vladimir Petrovich Typykhkak, a 41-year-old hunter, said “the sea begins to freeze in November only, while before it did so in September.”

Many said they encounter animals that had not been observed in their region previously, such as moose, lynx, badger and beaver. Several hunters from two villages along the Bering Sea, Lorino and Nuligran, reported having caught sharks in their nets.

Some also noted the appearance of unfamiliar birds like swallows and a species resembling sparrows or swifts. Tilmyet, an 81-year-old Chukchi sea hunter from the village of Vankarem, said birds are arriving earlier and departing later.

Changes in sea ice make for a shorter hunting season. Girgory Mikhailovich Rykhtyn, a 37-year-old Chukchi seal hunter and reindeer herder from Vankarem, said “there is no longer good sea ice.”

“Sea ice now remains until mid-June, and is gone altogether by mid-July. In the past, people were able to hunt on the ice all summer long,” he said.