by Glenn Taylor
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Oct 24/97) - Where do the beluga whales go for the winter? A radio-tagging program held this summer goes a long way toward answering that question.

Ten whales were caught at Hendrickson Island and tagged with radio collars, from July 26 to Aug. 1. Since then, researchers from around the world have been watching the whales' migrational patterns via satellite in an international program to learn more about the eternally smiling white whales.

Inuvik's Joey Amos was one of several men who joined the tagging program last summer. A number of partners were involved in the program, including the Fisheries Joint Management Committee, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and a number of international whale researchers.

Hunters and Trappers Committee members from Aklavik, Inuvik and Tuk were hired as herd bosses and jumpers for the tagging program. Working with biologists from England, Ireland and the U.S., the whalers joined an Alaskan Inupiat, who came along to obverse how whale-tagging is done in Canada.

The group originally intended to tag six whales, but the Alaskans brought three additional tags and a British researcher also brought an extra one.

Three of the 10 tagged whales are female. All of the tags except those provided by the Alaskans are now transmitting, and are expected to last about three months, through to November.

Using satellite radio recovery methods, the system tracks not only the whales' migrational patterns, but also monitors the diving depths and frequency of dives the whales perform.

"There are times that they may be foraging along the bottom for feeding or looking for a path through the massive ice packs," said Amos.

"It would appear that many of their dives are for short periods and at shallow depths ... however, information indicates that they can dive to depths in excess of 500 metres for periods of 20 to 25 minutes."

And now to answer the question posed in the first paragraph: where are the whales wintering? The radio tags are revealing

that all of the whales are now congregating around the Chukchi Sea, in Russian waters around Wrangel Island, north of the Siberian coast.

"This is partial answer to the question, where do they overwinter?" said Amos. "It appears that they do overwinter in the Bering Sea, but more information will qualify that assumption."