ACS Monterey Bay Program for November/December 2004
Contemporary Bowhead Subsistence Whaling
in a Small Alaskan Community
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| Speaker: Michael Galginaitis, Cultural Anthropologist | ||
Currently, ten Native Alaskan communities harvest bowhead whales under the subsistence exception provision of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972). For the last four years a project funded by the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service has documented subsistence whaling for one of these communities, Nuiqsut, potentially most affected by offshore oil and gas activities.
The talk draws on this work to present a summary of Nuiqsut subsistence whaling. It will include background information on the history of whaling in Alaskan waters, a short treatment of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the management of marine mammals, and a social and economic description of Nuiqsut, discussing how subsistence whaling fits into (and in many ways defines) life in this community on the coast east of Point Barrow.
Michael Galginaitis is an applied anthropologist, with twenty-two years of experience working in Alaska. He has been self-employed, doing business as Applied Sociocultural Research, since 1997. His work focuses on the effects of the development/management of Alaskan natural resources (oil, timber, fish) on local communities and industry participants.
Please join us for an interesting perspective on the importance of whales and whaling to a native Alaskan community.
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Bowhead whale drawing copyright American Cetacean Society.Last updated January 6, 2005.