Summer Field Season 2006 Field
Update #2: Living off the Land |
To see the previous installments
from "Summer Field Season 2006
Field Notes from the Pribilof Islands", click
below:
update #1 | update
#3 | update #4| update
#5 |
Greetings from the misty fur seal islands of the North!
 Summer
is my favorite time of year to visit the Pribilofs – the
islands are teeming with wildlife and the community is bustling with
people. Tourists and researchers flock to the islands each year to view
and study the fur seals and seabirds, and community members return to
visit family and/or to participate in the commercial halibut fishery.
Another summer event is the annual subsistence fur seal harvest, which
is the focus of my current research project.
Subsistence Harvest
For the last ten thousand years, Laaqudan (fur seals) have
been a traditional diet staple of the Unangan (Aleut) people
of the Pribilof Islands. During the commercial fur seal harvest, which
ended in 1983, Aleut hunters were paid mainly with goods from the U.S.
government. With no cash income, many families – such as my mother’s – depended
on fur seals, sea lions, wild birds, fish and murre eggs for their livelihood.
My mother was nine years old when she ate her first beef steak and chicken
eggs.
The
histories of fur seals and the Unangan (Aleut) people
of the Pribilof Islands are intertwined. According to oral tradition,
an Aleut hunter from Unimak Island (277 miles or 445 km south
of here) discovered the Pribilof Islands and named them Amiq.
The hunter lived on St. Paul Island for a year, gathering the
abundant fur seal skins to take back to his village in the Aleutian
Islands. |
To
this day, many Aleuts continue to supplement their diet with fur
seal and other local wildlife. St. Paul has one grocery store that
sells a variety of goods and produce, but with the cost of
freight food can be expensive – five granny smith apples
and three nectarines cost around fifteen dollars! Also, electricity
and fuel for a four-bedroom home ranges from $400–700 per month. With
the high cost of living, it is not surprising that many locals continue
to live a subsistence lifestyle. |
 Research Opportunity
The fur seal harvest presents researchers
like me with a unique opportunity to collect samples that are impossible
to obtain from live animals. It is important to note that this is an
entirely legal harvest, and that fur seals are harvested in the most
humane manner possible.
My research involves measuring the body lengths of harvested juvenile
males and collecting their upper canine teeth. The canines are air-dried
and shipped back to the University of British Columbia, where the age
of the seals is determined by counting the annual growth rings on the
teeth, much like counting the rings on a tree trunk.
From this information we can compile length-at-age
data to compare with previous years, which helps us to determine whether
juveniles are facing long-term nutritional shortages.
Since my last update, I have gone beachcombing,
hiking and exploring one of the many underground caves (or lava tubes)
on the island. Soon I will begin my master’s research project – tagging
adult females – so stay tuned for my next update when I will describe
this work in more detail.
Pamela
31 August 2006
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To see the previous installments from "Summer Field Season
2006
Field Notes from the Pribilof Islands", click
below:
update #1 | update #3 | update
#4 | update
#5
|
