Thoughts from an Aleut of the Bering Sea: 1
I am an Alaska Native, an Aleut, born and raised in the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea off the west coast of Alaska. My people have lived in intimate connection with the Bering Sea for almost ten thousand years, and we are still here with our connection still strong. Because of our intimate connection, we are able to notice the subtlest changes to the Bering Sea, and the fish and wildlife dependent on it, long before any highly trained scientist. Aleuts of the Pribilof Islands first noted anomalous things about wildlife that indicated that food stress was likely beginning and that this was likely an ecosystem-wide phenomenon. St. Paul Island, my home and home to some 500 Aleuts, was truly a magical, mystical place, hidden from the world by dense blankets of fog throughout the summer months. St. Paul was home to some of the largest cliff nesting seabird colonies in North America, two and a half million strong. And it was also the home of some 1.2 million northern fur seals (the largest fur seal colony in the northern hemisphere), as well as thousands of steller sea lions. In 1977, our people noted adult birds with their breast bones protruding, with chest muscles “caved in”; murre and kittiwake chicks (cliff nesting seabirds) falling off of cliff ledges and dying in larger numbers than normal; fur seal pelts so thin that we could see light through them when the fat was fleshed off; and sea lions chasing after and eating fur seal pups in greater frequency than any other time in living memory. From this, Aleuts knew that there was big trouble, and that it encompassed the entire Bering Sea because near-shore foragers, distance foragers, depth foragers, and surface foragers were all indicating food stress. Indeed, since this time, these animals having been precipitously declining in populations.
When I returned home to St. Paul in early July two years ago with my son Ian for a visit, my first desire was to be next to my beloved Bering Sea and the seals and birds and to share that with my son. I would share with him that which became a large part of me and who I am…the land, the wildlife, and the ocean. What I saw wrenched my heart and I cried. I cried for the diminishing number of bull seals who were waiting in vein for females who would never arrive. I cried for the handfuls of birds on the cliffs where there should have been tens of thousands. I cried because I realized my son would never experience the magic and mystery of Creation in the way I did at his age on St. Paul. My “Aleutness” and my humanness are defined by that which I grew up with, and these things are disappearing.
Today, we know that steller sea lions have declined some 80 percent in the past thirty years; fur seals are down by 60 percent and continuing to decline; harbor seals are down by 70 percent; sea otters are down by 80 percent; four species of incredibly beautiful and powerful sea ducks-the king, common, steller, and spectacled eiders are down by 80 percent; all species of crab have crashed in population as have critical forage fish like herring and sand lance in the central Bering Sea. And like these animals, our way of life that is intricately tied to them, is also dying. It is clear to Aleuts that these things are happening because of changes to our climate, pollutants, and over fishing… and those changes affect everything else in the Bering Sea, from sea ice and weather, to food availability. And what happens to the Bering Sea affects the North Pacific, the Chukchi Sea, the Beaufort Sea, and on to the rest of the world. Aleuts understand and have always known that everything is connected beyond that which most do not understand…physically, biologically, energetically, emotionally, and spiritually. No living creature on this planet will be unaffected, and that includes human beings.
Larry (Kuuyux) Merculieff.
-- Larry Merculieff
