Rare footage of Arctic narwhals
This expedition is a part of a project "Narwhal" - the first comprehensive research project aimed at studying, protecting, and popularizing the legendary Arctic "sea unicorn". The goal of the project is to study the narwhal population in the waters of Russia, to form a program for the protection of the species and its habitat.
The head of the project Mikhail Bergart told Reuters, the researchers needed more observations to determine the dynamics of the population.
"We must understand where it goes and wherefrom it comes in there or if it lives there permanently. We cannot answer these questions for sure because we came both times at the same season," he said.
Narwhal is a Red List species of cetaceans with a characteristic tusk. The narwhal lives in the waters of the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic. Main places: Franz Josef Land, waters around the Northern Island of Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard, the Canadian archipelago, and the shores of Greenland. The body length of an adult narwhal usually reaches 3.8-4.5 m. The weight of males is up to 2-3 tons, females weigh about 900 kg.
