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Medieval Icelanders Likely Hunted Blue Whales

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Thursday, May 23, 2024

In the fall of 1385, according to a 17th-century Icelandic text, a man named Ólafur went fishing off the northwestern coast of Iceland. In the cold seas cradled by the region’s labyrinthine fjords, Ólafur reportedly came across an animal that would have dwarfed his open wooden boat—a blue whale, the largest animal on record, known in the Icelandic language as steypireydur. Jón Guðmundsson, or Jón the Learned, the poet and scholar who recorded Ólafur’s story, called blue whales the “best and holiest of all whales.” For sailors who were in danger from other, more “evil” whales, Guðmundsson wrote, “it is good to seek shelter with the blue whale, if it is close at hand, and to stay as close to it as possible.” He went on to explain that blue whales were typically calm animals whose size alone intimidated more dangerous sea creatures. Blue whales weren’t just mythic protectors of medieval Icelanders, though—increasing evidence suggests that they were also an important food source. When the massive whale surfaced next to Ólafur’s boat, the man thrust his homemade spear into the flesh of the whale. The spear would have been marked with Ólafur’s signature emblem, and if all went well, Ólafur would wound the whale badly enough that it would wash up dead on a nearby shore. Whoever found it would know Ólafur had dealt the deadly blow by the markings on the spear tip, and he could stake his claim on the whale’s bounty. In an era when most Icelanders survived predominantly by raising sheep, a blue whale—which can reach more than 95 feet long and weigh as much as 165 tons—was a caloric windfall. One animal could yield 66 tons of meat—the equivalent of 3,000 lambs—and, according to a 13th-century Norse text, was reportedly “better for eating and smells better than any of the other fishes.” A drawing of 19 whales and a walrus by Jon Guðmundsson, a 17th-century poet and scholar Courtesy of the Royal Danish Library Yet, Ólafur wasn’t so lucky. The whale’s body never turned up on Iceland’s shores. Later, though, a group of hungry travelers some 930 miles away, in Greenland, came across a recently dead, beached blue whale. The party was led by an Icelandic chieftain, and Guðmundsson recounts that as he and his men butchered the animal, they found embedded within it an iron spearhead marked with Ólafur’s emblem. Knowing they couldn’t deliver Ólafur his bounty, the men ate the whale, staving off starvation. This story—one of many similar tales that environmental historian Vicki Szabo has been scouring over the last three decades—offers a compelling glimpse into Icelanders’ interactions with blue whales. Norse texts can be scientifically accurate, describing behaviors such as trap feeding, in which the whales open their mouths and let fish gather inside before closing their jaws. But they often combine evidence-based facts with “supernatural stuff, trolls and monsters,” says Szabo. Relying on these documents to paint an accurate picture of human-whale relationships in the Middle Ages, then, is challenging. Before the 2000s, the archaeological record wasn’t much help, either. Since Icelanders usually processed whales on the shoreline, most whalebones were lost to the ocean, so their use is likely underrepresented in the archaeological record. Zooarchaeologists didn’t identify whalebones by species; they only categorized them as “large whale” or “small whale.” Whales’ slippery preservation led 20th-century experts to call them the “invisible resource.” And though whales were an important source of cultural traditions, building materials, and protein in many northern cultures, most communities focused their hunting on smaller, more manageable species. Were medieval Icelanders really hunting blue whales centuries before the invention of exploding harpoons and faster steam-powered ships? If so, how were they doing it, and how often? And what can these interactions reveal about both historical and modern whale populations? Szabo, of Western Carolina University in the United States, is now leading a multidisciplinary team of archaeologists, historians, folklorists and geneticists to try to answer these very questions. Szabo first became interested in Icelanders’ history with whales in the early 1990s. At first, she was limited to studying printed works like the Icelandic sagas, a collection of legendary tales recorded in the 13th and 14th centuries. The sagas and other texts—including those written by Jón Guðmundsson—are a trove of whale stories. “These people talked about whales all the time,” Szabo says. Often, they specifically mentioned blue whales. Through her early research, Szabo learned that by the 13th century, Icelanders were so dependent on whales that they wrote complicated laws to establish how washed-up whales were divvied up. A whale’s size, how it died and who owned the property where it beached all determined who got a share of the whale meat. Portioning also depended on who secured it to the shore; if an Icelander saw a dead whale floating in the sea, they were legally obligated to find a way to tether it to land. And hunters not only marked their spears with their signature emblem, but they also registered those emblems with the government, improving the chances that they could claim their lawful share of any whale they speared. In addition to consuming whale meat and blubber, Norse people used the bones as tools, vessels, gaming pieces, furniture, and beams for roofs and walls. Illumination from a 16th-century Icelandic manuscript, showing people processing a rather fishlike whale Courtesy of the Árni Magnússon Institute Even with government regulations, though, whale hunting was a fraught enterprise. Spearheads were expensive, crafted by Icelandic smiths using iron smelted from deposits in bogs. One fisherman in the literature grew so frustrated at losing five spears in a single day that he gave up hunting altogether. And scavenging whales that beached themselves or turned up dead on shore still caused drama. At least five sagas tell stories of fights breaking out over the rights to stranded blue whales. Szabo was fascinated by such stories, and she became curious about which whale species Icelanders relied on most. Yet it wasn’t until the mid-2000s, when scientists pioneered new techniques to analyze ancient bones using DNA analysis and spectroscopy, that Szabo could begin to answer her question. Spectroscopy, which reveals the chemical makeup of bones by analyzing collagen proteins found in bone fragments, is cheaper and faster than DNA analysis. It’s proved effective at identifying many whale species, including blues, but it can’t distinguish between certain species, such as right and bowhead whales. Scientists often use spectroscopy as an initial screen of species, then clear up any uncertainties with DNA testing. Camilla Speller, an archaeologist at Canada’s University of British Columbia who is not involved in the Iceland project, says these technologies have helped change our knowledge of past human-whale relations, as well as our understanding of the diversity of whales that historical humans hunted. “Every time we do spectroscopy on an assemblage, I think, Oh man, I wasn’t expecting that species to appear.” When Szabo and collaborators applied DNA and spectroscopy techniques to whalebones in Iceland, the outcome was no different. A large, intact whalebone found by researchers at Hafnir Courtesy of Vicki Szabo Beginning in 2017, geneticist Brenna Frasier, a collaborator of Szabo’s, analyzed the DNA of 124 whalebones from a dozen archaeological sites across Iceland dating from around 900 to 1800 C.E. in her lab at Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia. Over half of the bones came from blue whales. The rest were a mix of over a dozen other species. As the climate shifted from the medieval warm period, which ended in the 13th century, to the colder temperatures of the Little Ice Age, evidence of many smaller whale species disappeared from the archaeological record. Blue whales, however, still dominated. When Szabo saw the results, she was “staggered.” No other culture is known to have relied on blue whales so regularly. This is partially because blue whales typically live in the open ocean rather than close to shore, they dive to depths of 1,000 feet, and they tend to sink when they die. Then there’s the technical challenge of the whales’ imposing size. Frasier was involved in the necropsy of a blue whale that washed up near Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2021. She says it took researchers several days with heavy machinery to break down the animal. “I had never been waist-deep in whale until that event,” she says. Because of the challenges of hunting and harvesting blue whales, Szabo’s team of researchers had expected to find more evidence of smaller whales like pilot whales and minke whales, which would have been easier to drive ashore and butcher and, today at least, are more abundant. In similar archaeological and historical studies in the Faroe Islands, the relatively svelte pilot whale dominated. Medieval Dutch hunters favored right whales, which come close to shore and float when they die. Other traditional whaling cultures also tend to prefer slower or more coastal species that are more accessible and easier to hunt. “I find it surprising that a medieval whaler would go after a blue whale,” says Speller. A 1539 Italian map of “the Northern Lands and of their Marvels” Public Domain But as Szabo’s team continues to show, medieval Icelanders seem to have done just that. That the DNA analysis now substantiates the attention blue whales received in Icelandic texts is gratifying for Szabo. It means that Icelanders were scavenging and likely even hunting whales as far back as the ninth century—roughly the time that they first arrived on Iceland’s shores. Authors like Guðmundsson weren’t exaggerating: Icelanders were likely encountering blues and exploiting them more than any other species of whale. Recently, the landscape has offered further validation that preindustrial Icelanders regularly killed and harvested these leviathans. While in Iceland in 2023, Szabo and Frasier were encouraged by a colleague to meet the Icelandic archaeologist Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir from the Institute of Archaeology, Iceland. In a conference room at the University of Iceland, Guðmundsdóttir—who often studies driftwood in the archaeological record—told Frasier and Szabo of a new archaeological site, known as Hafnir, that she had been digging on the Skagi Peninsula in northwestern Iceland. As waves erode the coastline, Guðmundsdóttir said, ancient whalebones dislodge from the sediment like loose teeth, offering a new trove of research materials; Guðmundsdóttir had found whalebones left by residents at least as far back as the 12th century. Hearing this, Frasier and Szabo shared an excited glance. While most bones were still on site, Guðmundsdóttir showed them a few she had collected. “We were just astounded by this box filled with some of the largest bones we’d ever seen from an archaeological context,” Szabo says. The whalebones at Hafnir are so close to the water’s edge that they are eroding into the ocean. Courtesy of Vicki Szabo Later, Szabo visited Hafnir herself. Hafnir’s fertile bays and long green grass give the appearance of a place that would be ideal for settlement if the weather wasn’t so often terrible. Local farmers recently told Guðmundsdóttir that last spring’s winds were so strong they picked up lambs and blew them downwind. Later that summer, Guðmundsdóttir lost a tent on the dig site in the same way. “The wind and the rain can drive you insane,” she admits. For the researchers, the struggles are worth it. “I’ve never seen an archaeological site with this much whalebone falling out,” Szabo says. There are too many whalebones for it to be random beached whales, Guðmundsdóttir adds: “[People] must have been hunting them.” So far, the team has uncovered dozens, possibly hundreds, of whalebones that were worked or whittled by local people across many phases of settlement. They’ve also found unprecedented intact bones, like a vertebra the diameter of a steering wheel, that are so big Szabo thinks they must have come from blue whales. The researchers are now in the process of running their initial spectroscopy tests to confirm that blue whales are as common here as they’ve proved to be at other Icelandic sites. But they need to act fast: Every time the archaeological team returns, more history has been lost to the sea. “It is the last chance to get the information out before it just completely goes,” Guðmundsdóttir says. For Szabo’s project, which is set to wrap up in the fall of 2024, one question remains: How exactly were Icelanders able to harvest so many blue whales? Ævar Petersen, an independent Icelandic biologist and consultant for Szabo’s project, suspects people may have hunted the smaller calves of the species, which can be more curious toward humans and more manageable once dead. He also thinks that early settlers wouldn’t have cared what species of whale they’d found; they’d use whatever was readily available. Perhaps what was most available was blue whales. This theory is backed up by new evidence that blue whales may have been more abundant and lived closer to shore between 900 and 1900 C.E. than today. As Petersen recently documented, for example, 32 blue whales were trapped in an ice-filled cove in Anastadir in northwestern Iceland during a raging May snowstorm in 1882—an exceptionally cold year in Iceland when famine loomed. There were no roads, yet people flocked to the cove, traveling over the icy landscape on foot or horseback—some from as far as 62 miles away—to help kill and butcher the whales. Whale meat from Anastadir possibly saved several thousand people from starvation. Some meat and blubber was eaten fresh; some was stored in special pits called hvalgrafir for as long as four years. A 17th-century map of Iceland, complete with fantastical sea creatures, by Abraham Ortelius. Public Domain Today, finding so many blue whales so close to shore is unheard of. A year after the 1882 slaughter at Anastadir, improved technology allowed Norwegians to begin hunting blue whales at an industrial scale around Iceland. Other nations soon followed, and by the mid-20th century, industrial whalers from the United States, Japan, Russia and elsewhere had likely massacred 90 percent of the planet’s blue whale population. Even though Iceland no longer allows blue whale hunting, commercial whaling is still legal there today. Iceland is the only country that allows whaling of the endangered fin whale, the second-largest whale species. Around the same time as the 1882 slaughter, a slight global cooling trend brought more ice into Iceland’s coves. The combination of human pressures and an icier coast may have eventually driven blue whales offshore. Perhaps, Szabo theorizes, Icelanders were able to harvest so many blue whales because they behaved differently than today’s blue whales: industrial whaling hadn’t yet decimated their population, and different climatic conditions tempted them closer to shores and coves. Northwestern Iceland in particular—where Hafnir, Anastadir and several other archaeological sites are located—increasingly stands out as a historical hotspot of blue whale activity. Northwestern Iceland is also where Ólafur, the 14th-century hunter, speared blue whales from his open wooden boat. Later in his life, Ólafur saw a female whale coming into the bay near his home. According to Guðmundsson’s telling, Ólafur took aim but only punctured the animal’s dorsal fin. The scarred blue whale returned to the same bay for 15 years afterward. Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale, choosing not to try to kill her again. But he had no problem shooting the whale’s calf. One summer, when he raised his spear and took aim at the calf, his spear went askew, hitting the mother instead. With that, he’d had enough. That was the last time Ólafur speared a whale.This article is from Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com. Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

New research suggests Viking-age hunters took down the biggest animal on Earth

In the fall of 1385, according to a 17th-century Icelandic text, a man named Ólafur went fishing off the northwestern coast of Iceland. In the cold seas cradled by the region’s labyrinthine fjords, Ólafur reportedly came across an animal that would have dwarfed his open wooden boat—a blue whale, the largest animal on record, known in the Icelandic language as steypireydur.

Jón Guðmundsson, or Jón the Learned, the poet and scholar who recorded Ólafur’s story, called blue whales the “best and holiest of all whales.” For sailors who were in danger from other, more “evil” whales, Guðmundsson wrote, “it is good to seek shelter with the blue whale, if it is close at hand, and to stay as close to it as possible.” He went on to explain that blue whales were typically calm animals whose size alone intimidated more dangerous sea creatures.

Blue whales weren’t just mythic protectors of medieval Icelanders, though—increasing evidence suggests that they were also an important food source. When the massive whale surfaced next to Ólafur’s boat, the man thrust his homemade spear into the flesh of the whale. The spear would have been marked with Ólafur’s signature emblem, and if all went well, Ólafur would wound the whale badly enough that it would wash up dead on a nearby shore. Whoever found it would know Ólafur had dealt the deadly blow by the markings on the spear tip, and he could stake his claim on the whale’s bounty. In an era when most Icelanders survived predominantly by raising sheep, a blue whale—which can reach more than 95 feet long and weigh as much as 165 tons—was a caloric windfall. One animal could yield 66 tons of meat—the equivalent of 3,000 lambs—and, according to a 13th-century Norse text, was reportedly “better for eating and smells better than any of the other fishes.”

Historical Icelandic Whales
A drawing of 19 whales and a walrus by Jon Guðmundsson, a 17th-century poet and scholar Courtesy of the Royal Danish Library

Yet, Ólafur wasn’t so lucky. The whale’s body never turned up on Iceland’s shores. Later, though, a group of hungry travelers some 930 miles away, in Greenland, came across a recently dead, beached blue whale. The party was led by an Icelandic chieftain, and Guðmundsson recounts that as he and his men butchered the animal, they found embedded within it an iron spearhead marked with Ólafur’s emblem. Knowing they couldn’t deliver Ólafur his bounty, the men ate the whale, staving off starvation.

This story—one of many similar tales that environmental historian Vicki Szabo has been scouring over the last three decades—offers a compelling glimpse into Icelanders’ interactions with blue whales. Norse texts can be scientifically accurate, describing behaviors such as trap feeding, in which the whales open their mouths and let fish gather inside before closing their jaws. But they often combine evidence-based facts with “supernatural stuff, trolls and monsters,” says Szabo. Relying on these documents to paint an accurate picture of human-whale relationships in the Middle Ages, then, is challenging.

Before the 2000s, the archaeological record wasn’t much help, either. Since Icelanders usually processed whales on the shoreline, most whalebones were lost to the ocean, so their use is likely underrepresented in the archaeological record. Zooarchaeologists didn’t identify whalebones by species; they only categorized them as “large whale” or “small whale.” Whales’ slippery preservation led 20th-century experts to call them the “invisible resource.”

And though whales were an important source of cultural traditions, building materials, and protein in many northern cultures, most communities focused their hunting on smaller, more manageable species. Were medieval Icelanders really hunting blue whales centuries before the invention of exploding harpoons and faster steam-powered ships? If so, how were they doing it, and how often? And what can these interactions reveal about both historical and modern whale populations?

Szabo, of Western Carolina University in the United States, is now leading a multidisciplinary team of archaeologists, historians, folklorists and geneticists to try to answer these very questions.


Szabo first became interested in Icelanders’ history with whales in the early 1990s. At first, she was limited to studying printed works like the Icelandic sagas, a collection of legendary tales recorded in the 13th and 14th centuries. The sagas and other texts—including those written by Jón Guðmundsson—are a trove of whale stories. “These people talked about whales all the time,” Szabo says. Often, they specifically mentioned blue whales.

Through her early research, Szabo learned that by the 13th century, Icelanders were so dependent on whales that they wrote complicated laws to establish how washed-up whales were divvied up. A whale’s size, how it died and who owned the property where it beached all determined who got a share of the whale meat. Portioning also depended on who secured it to the shore; if an Icelander saw a dead whale floating in the sea, they were legally obligated to find a way to tether it to land. And hunters not only marked their spears with their signature emblem, but they also registered those emblems with the government, improving the chances that they could claim their lawful share of any whale they speared. In addition to consuming whale meat and blubber, Norse people used the bones as tools, vessels, gaming pieces, furniture, and beams for roofs and walls.

People Processing a Fishlike Whale
Illumination from a 16th-century Icelandic manuscript, showing people processing a rather fishlike whale Courtesy of the Árni Magnússon Institute

Even with government regulations, though, whale hunting was a fraught enterprise. Spearheads were expensive, crafted by Icelandic smiths using iron smelted from deposits in bogs. One fisherman in the literature grew so frustrated at losing five spears in a single day that he gave up hunting altogether. And scavenging whales that beached themselves or turned up dead on shore still caused drama. At least five sagas tell stories of fights breaking out over the rights to stranded blue whales.

Szabo was fascinated by such stories, and she became curious about which whale species Icelanders relied on most. Yet it wasn’t until the mid-2000s, when scientists pioneered new techniques to analyze ancient bones using DNA analysis and spectroscopy, that Szabo could begin to answer her question. Spectroscopy, which reveals the chemical makeup of bones by analyzing collagen proteins found in bone fragments, is cheaper and faster than DNA analysis. It’s proved effective at identifying many whale species, including blues, but it can’t distinguish between certain species, such as right and bowhead whales. Scientists often use spectroscopy as an initial screen of species, then clear up any uncertainties with DNA testing.

Camilla Speller, an archaeologist at Canada’s University of British Columbia who is not involved in the Iceland project, says these technologies have helped change our knowledge of past human-whale relations, as well as our understanding of the diversity of whales that historical humans hunted. “Every time we do spectroscopy on an assemblage, I think, Oh man, I wasn’t expecting that species to appear.” When Szabo and collaborators applied DNA and spectroscopy techniques to whalebones in Iceland, the outcome was no different.

Whalebone
A large, intact whalebone found by researchers at Hafnir Courtesy of Vicki Szabo

Beginning in 2017, geneticist Brenna Frasier, a collaborator of Szabo’s, analyzed the DNA of 124 whalebones from a dozen archaeological sites across Iceland dating from around 900 to 1800 C.E. in her lab at Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia. Over half of the bones came from blue whales. The rest were a mix of over a dozen other species. As the climate shifted from the medieval warm period, which ended in the 13th century, to the colder temperatures of the Little Ice Age, evidence of many smaller whale species disappeared from the archaeological record. Blue whales, however, still dominated.

When Szabo saw the results, she was “staggered.” No other culture is known to have relied on blue whales so regularly. This is partially because blue whales typically live in the open ocean rather than close to shore, they dive to depths of 1,000 feet, and they tend to sink when they die. Then there’s the technical challenge of the whales’ imposing size. Frasier was involved in the necropsy of a blue whale that washed up near Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2021. She says it took researchers several days with heavy machinery to break down the animal. “I had never been waist-deep in whale until that event,” she says.

Because of the challenges of hunting and harvesting blue whales, Szabo’s team of researchers had expected to find more evidence of smaller whales like pilot whales and minke whales, which would have been easier to drive ashore and butcher and, today at least, are more abundant. In similar archaeological and historical studies in the Faroe Islands, the relatively svelte pilot whale dominated. Medieval Dutch hunters favored right whales, which come close to shore and float when they die. Other traditional whaling cultures also tend to prefer slower or more coastal species that are more accessible and easier to hunt. “I find it surprising that a medieval whaler would go after a blue whale,” says Speller.

Italian Map of Northern Lands
A 1539 Italian map of “the Northern Lands and of their Marvels” Public Domain

But as Szabo’s team continues to show, medieval Icelanders seem to have done just that.

That the DNA analysis now substantiates the attention blue whales received in Icelandic texts is gratifying for Szabo. It means that Icelanders were scavenging and likely even hunting whales as far back as the ninth century—roughly the time that they first arrived on Iceland’s shores. Authors like Guðmundsson weren’t exaggerating: Icelanders were likely encountering blues and exploiting them more than any other species of whale.

Recently, the landscape has offered further validation that preindustrial Icelanders regularly killed and harvested these leviathans. While in Iceland in 2023, Szabo and Frasier were encouraged by a colleague to meet the Icelandic archaeologist Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir from the Institute of Archaeology, Iceland. In a conference room at the University of Iceland, Guðmundsdóttir—who often studies driftwood in the archaeological record—told Frasier and Szabo of a new archaeological site, known as Hafnir, that she had been digging on the Skagi Peninsula in northwestern Iceland. As waves erode the coastline, Guðmundsdóttir said, ancient whalebones dislodge from the sediment like loose teeth, offering a new trove of research materials; Guðmundsdóttir had found whalebones left by residents at least as far back as the 12th century.

Hearing this, Frasier and Szabo shared an excited glance. While most bones were still on site, Guðmundsdóttir showed them a few she had collected. “We were just astounded by this box filled with some of the largest bones we’d ever seen from an archaeological context,” Szabo says.

Whalebones at Hafnir
The whalebones at Hafnir are so close to the water’s edge that they are eroding into the ocean. Courtesy of Vicki Szabo

Later, Szabo visited Hafnir herself. Hafnir’s fertile bays and long green grass give the appearance of a place that would be ideal for settlement if the weather wasn’t so often terrible. Local farmers recently told Guðmundsdóttir that last spring’s winds were so strong they picked up lambs and blew them downwind. Later that summer, Guðmundsdóttir lost a tent on the dig site in the same way. “The wind and the rain can drive you insane,” she admits.

For the researchers, the struggles are worth it. “I’ve never seen an archaeological site with this much whalebone falling out,” Szabo says. There are too many whalebones for it to be random beached whales, Guðmundsdóttir adds: “[People] must have been hunting them.” So far, the team has uncovered dozens, possibly hundreds, of whalebones that were worked or whittled by local people across many phases of settlement. They’ve also found unprecedented intact bones, like a vertebra the diameter of a steering wheel, that are so big Szabo thinks they must have come from blue whales. The researchers are now in the process of running their initial spectroscopy tests to confirm that blue whales are as common here as they’ve proved to be at other Icelandic sites.

But they need to act fast: Every time the archaeological team returns, more history has been lost to the sea. “It is the last chance to get the information out before it just completely goes,” Guðmundsdóttir says.


For Szabo’s project, which is set to wrap up in the fall of 2024, one question remains: How exactly were Icelanders able to harvest so many blue whales? Ævar Petersen, an independent Icelandic biologist and consultant for Szabo’s project, suspects people may have hunted the smaller calves of the species, which can be more curious toward humans and more manageable once dead. He also thinks that early settlers wouldn’t have cared what species of whale they’d found; they’d use whatever was readily available. Perhaps what was most available was blue whales.

This theory is backed up by new evidence that blue whales may have been more abundant and lived closer to shore between 900 and 1900 C.E. than today. As Petersen recently documented, for example, 32 blue whales were trapped in an ice-filled cove in Anastadir in northwestern Iceland during a raging May snowstorm in 1882—an exceptionally cold year in Iceland when famine loomed. There were no roads, yet people flocked to the cove, traveling over the icy landscape on foot or horseback—some from as far as 62 miles away—to help kill and butcher the whales. Whale meat from Anastadir possibly saved several thousand people from starvation. Some meat and blubber was eaten fresh; some was stored in special pits called hvalgrafir for as long as four years.

17th-Century Map of Iceland
A 17th-century map of Iceland, complete with fantastical sea creatures, by Abraham Ortelius. Public Domain

Today, finding so many blue whales so close to shore is unheard of.

A year after the 1882 slaughter at Anastadir, improved technology allowed Norwegians to begin hunting blue whales at an industrial scale around Iceland. Other nations soon followed, and by the mid-20th century, industrial whalers from the United States, Japan, Russia and elsewhere had likely massacred 90 percent of the planet’s blue whale population. Even though Iceland no longer allows blue whale hunting, commercial whaling is still legal there today. Iceland is the only country that allows whaling of the endangered fin whale, the second-largest whale species.

Around the same time as the 1882 slaughter, a slight global cooling trend brought more ice into Iceland’s coves. The combination of human pressures and an icier coast may have eventually driven blue whales offshore. Perhaps, Szabo theorizes, Icelanders were able to harvest so many blue whales because they behaved differently than today’s blue whales: industrial whaling hadn’t yet decimated their population, and different climatic conditions tempted them closer to shores and coves. Northwestern Iceland in particular—where Hafnir, Anastadir and several other archaeological sites are located—increasingly stands out as a historical hotspot of blue whale activity.

Northwestern Iceland is also where Ólafur, the 14th-century hunter, speared blue whales from his open wooden boat. Later in his life, Ólafur saw a female whale coming into the bay near his home. According to Guðmundsson’s telling, Ólafur took aim but only punctured the animal’s dorsal fin. The scarred blue whale returned to the same bay for 15 years afterward. Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale, choosing not to try to kill her again. But he had no problem shooting the whale’s calf. One summer, when he raised his spear and took aim at the calf, his spear went askew, hitting the mother instead.

With that, he’d had enough. That was the last time Ólafur speared a whale.

This article is from Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

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Giant Sloths and Many Other Massive Creatures Were Once Common on Our Planet. With Environmental Changes, Such Giants Could Thrive Again

If large creatures like elephants, giraffes and bison are allowed to thrive, they could alter habitats that allow for the rise of other giants

Giant Sloths and Many Other Massive Creatures Were Once Common on Our Planet. With Environmental Changes, Such Giants Could Thrive Again If large creatures like elephants, giraffes and bison are allowed to thrive, they could alter habitats that allow for the rise of other giants Riley Black - Science Correspondent July 11, 2025 8:00 a.m. Ancient sloths lived in trees, on mountains, in deserts, in boreal forests and on open savannas. Some grew as large as elephants. Illustration by Diego Barletta The largest sloth of all time was the size of an elephant. Known to paleontologists as Eremotherium, the shaggy giant shuffled across the woodlands of the ancient Americas between 60,000 and five million years ago. Paleontologists have spent decades hotly debating why such magnificent beasts went extinct, the emerging picture involving a one-two punch of increasing human influence on the landscape and a warmer interglacial climate that began to change the world’s ecosystems. But even less understood is how our planet came to host entire communities of such immense animals during the Pleistocene. Now, a new study on the success of the sloths helps to reveal how the world of Ice Age giants came to be, and hints that an Earth brimming with enormous animals could come again. Florida Museum of Natural History paleontologist Rachel Narducci and colleagues tracked how sloths came to be such widespread and essential parts of the Pleistocene Americas and published their findings in Science this May. The researchers found that climate shifts that underwrote the spread of grasslands allowed big sloths to arise, the shaggy mammals then altering those habitats to maintain open spaces best suited to big bodies capable of moving long distances. The interactions between the animals and environment show how giants attained their massive size, and how strange it is that now our planet has fewer big animals than would otherwise be here. Earth still boasts some impressively big species. In fact, the largest animal of all time is alive right now and only evolved relatively recently. The earliest blue whale fossils date to about 1.5 million years ago, and, at 98 feet long and more than 200 tons, the whale is larger than any mammoth or dinosaur. Our planet has always boasted a greater array of small species than large ones, even during prehistoric ages thought of as synonymous with megafauna. Nevertheless, Earth’s ecosystems are still in a megafaunal lull that began at the close of the Ice Age. “I often say we are living on a downsized planet Earth,” says University of Maine paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill.Consider what North America was like during the Pleistocene, between 11,000 years and two million ago. The landmass used to host multiple forms of mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, enormous armadillos, multiple species of sabercat, huge bison, dire wolves and many more large creatures that formed ancient ecosystems unlike anything on our planet today. In addition, many familiar species such as jaguars, black bears, coyotes, white-tailed deer and golden eagles also thrived. Elsewhere in the world lived terror birds taller than an adult human, wombats the size of cars, woolly rhinos, a variety of elephants with unusual tusks and other creatures. Ecosystems capable of supporting such giants have been the norm rather than the exception for tens of millions of years. Giant sloths were among the greatest success stories among the giant-size menagerie. The herbivores evolved on South America when it was still an island continent, only moving into Central and North America as prehistoric Panama connected the landmasses about 2.7 million years ago. Some were small, like living two- and three-toed sloths, while others embodied a range of sizes all the way up to elephant-sized giants like Eremotherium and the “giant beast” Megatherium. An Eremotherium skeleton at the Houston Museum of Natural Science demonstrates just how large the creature grew. James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images The earliest sloths originated on South America about 35 million years ago. They were already big. Narducci and colleagues estimate that the common ancestor of all sloths was between about 150 and 770 pounds—or similar to the range of sizes seen among black bears today—and they walked on the ground. “I was surprised and thrilled” to find that sloths started off large, Narducci says, as ancestral forms of major mammal groups are often small, nocturnal creatures. The earliest sloths were already in a good position to shift with Earth’s climate and ecological changes. The uplift of the Andes Mountains in South America led to changes on the continent as more open, drier grasslands spread where there had previously been wetter woodlands and forests. While some sloths became smaller as they spent more time around and within trees, the grasslands would host the broadest diversity of sloth species. The grasslands sloths were the ones that ballooned to exceptional sizes. Earth has been shifting between warmer and wetter times, like now, and cooler and drier climates over millions of years. The chillier and more arid times are what gave sloths their size boost. During these colder spans, bigger sloths were better able to hold on to their body heat, but they also didn’t need as much water, and they were capable of traveling long distances more efficiently thanks to their size. “The cooler and drier the climate, especially after 11.6 million years ago, led to expansive grasslands, which tends to favor the evolution of increasing body mass,” Narducci says. The combination of climate shifts, mountain uplift and vegetation changes created environments where sloths could evolve into a variety of forms—including multiple times when sloths became giants again. Gill says that large body size was a “winning strategy” for herbivores. “At a certain point, megaherbivores get so large that most predators can’t touch them; they’re able to access nutrition in foods that other animals can’t really even digest thanks to gut microbes that help them digest cellulose, and being large means you’re also mobile,” Gill adds, underscoring advantages that have repeatedly pushed animals to get big time and again. The same advantages underwrote the rise of the biggest dinosaurs as well as more recent giants like the sloths and mastodons. As large sloths could travel further, suitable grassland habitats stretched from Central America to prehistoric Florida. “This is what also allowed for their passage into North America,” Narducci says. Sloths were able to follow their favored habitats between continents. If the world were to shift back toward cooler and drier conditions that assisted the spread of the grasslands that gave sloths their size boost, perhaps similar giants could evolve. The sticking point is what humans are doing to Earth’s climate, ecosystems and existing species. The diversity and number of large species alive today is vastly, and often negatively, affected by humans. A 2019 study of human influences on 362 megafauna species, on land and in the water, found that 70 percent are diminishing in number, and 59 percent are getting dangerously close to extinction. But if that relationship were to change, either through our actions or intentions, studies like the new paper on giant sloths hint that ecosystems brimming with a wealth of megafaunal species could evolve again. Big animals change the habitats where they live, which in turn tends to support more large species adapted to those environments. The giant sloths that evolved among ancient grasslands helped to keep those spaces open in tandem with other big herbivores, such as mastodons, as well as the large carnivores that preyed upon them. Paleontologists and ecologists know this from studies of how large animals such as giraffes and rhinos affect vegetation around them. Big herbivores, in particular, tend to keep habitats relatively open. Elephants and other big beasts push over trees, trample vegetation underfoot, eat vast amounts of greenery and transport seeds in their dung, disassembling vegetation while unintentionally planting the beginnings of new habitats. Such broad, open spaces were essential to the origins of the giant sloths, and so creating wide-open spaces helps spur the evolution of giants to roam such environments. For now, we are left with the fossil record of giant animals that were here so recently that some of their bones aren’t even petrified, skin and fur still clinging to some skeletons. “The grasslands they left behind are just not the same, in ways we’re really only starting to understand and appreciate,” Gill says. A 2019 study on prehistoric herbivores in Africa, for example, found that the large plant-eaters altered the water cycling, incidence of fire and vegetation of their environment in a way that has no modern equivalent and can’t just be assumed to be an ancient version of today’s savannas. The few megaherbivores still with us alter the plant life, water flow, seed dispersal and other aspects of modern environments in their own unique ways, she notes, which should be a warning to us to protect them—and the ways in which they affect our planet. If humans wish to see the origin of new magnificent giants like the ones we visit museums to see, we must change our relationship to the Earth first. Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

How changes in California culture have influenced the evolution of wild animals in Los Angeles

A new study argues that religion, politics and war affect how animals and plants in cities evolve, and the confluence of these forces seem to be actively affecting urban wildlife in L.A.

For decades, biologists have studied how cities affect wildlife by altering food supplies, fragmenting habitats and polluting the environment. But a new global study argues that these physical factors are only part of the story. Societal factors, the researchers claim, especially those tied to religion, politics and war, also leave lasting marks on the evolutionary paths of the animals and plants that share our cities.Published in Nature Cities, the comprehensive review synthesizes evidence from cities worldwide, revealing how human conflict and cultural practices affect wildlife genetics, behavior and survival in urban environments.The paper challenges the tendency to treat the social world as separate from ecological processes. Instead, the study argues, we should consider the ways the aftershocks of religious traditions, political systems and armed conflicts can influence the genetic structure of urban wildlife populations. (Gabriella Angotti-Jones / Los Angeles Times) “Social sciences have been very far removed from life sciences for a very long time, and they haven’t been integrated,” said Elizabeth Carlen, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and co-lead author of the study. “We started just kind of playing around with what social and cultural processes haven’t been talked about,” eventually focusing on religion, politics and war because of their persistent yet underexamined impacts on evolutionary biology, particularly in cities, where cultural values and built environments are densely concentrated.Carlen’s own work in St. Louis examines how racial segregation and urban design, often influenced by policing strategies, affect ecological conditions and wild animals’ access to green spaces.“Crime prevention through environmental design,” she said, is one example of how these factors influence urban wildlife. “Law enforcement can request that there not be bushes … or short trees, because then they don’t have a sight line across the park.” Although that design choice may serve surveillance goals, it also limits the ability of small animals to navigate those spaces.These patterns, she emphasized, aren’t unique to St. Louis. “I’m positive that it’s happening in Los Angeles. Parks in Beverly Hills are going to look very different than parks in Compton. And part of that is based on what policing looks like in those different places.” This may very well be the case, as there is a significantly lower level of urban tree species richness in areas like Compton than in areas like Beverly Hills, according to UCLA’s Biodiversity Atlas. A coyote wanders onto the fairway, with the sprinklers turned on, as a golfer makes his way back to his cart after hitting a shot on the 16th hole of the Harding golf course at Griffith Park. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) The study also examines war and its disruptions, which can have unpredictable effects on animal populations. Human evacuation from war zones can open urban habitats to wildlife, while the destruction of green spaces or contamination of soil and water can fragment ecosystems and reduce genetic diversity.In Kharkiv, Ukraine, for example, human displacement during the Russian invasion led to the return of wild boars and deer to urban parks, according to the study. In contrast, sparrows, which depend on human food waste, nearly vanished from high-rise areas.All of this, the researchers argue, underscores the need to rethink how cities are designed and managed by recognizing how religion, politics and war shape not just human communities but also the evolutionary trajectories of urban wildlife. By integrating ecological and social considerations into urban development, planners and scientists can help create cities that are more livable for people while also supporting the long-term genetic diversity and adaptability of the other species that inhabit them.This intersection of culture and biology may be playing out in cities across the globe, including Los Angeles.A study released earlier this year tracking coyotes across L.A. County found that the animals were more likely to avoid wealthier neighborhoods, not because of a lack of access or food scarcity, but possibly due to more aggressive human behavior toward them and higher rates of “removal” — including trapping and releasing elsewhere, and in some rare cases, killing them. In lower-income areas, where trapping is less common, coyotes tended to roam more freely, even though these neighborhoods often had more pollution and fewer resources that would typically support wild canines. Researchers say these patterns reflect how broader urban inequities are written directly into the movements of and risks faced by wildlife in the city.Black bears, parrots and even peacocks tell a similar story in Los Angeles. Wilson Sherman, a PhD student at UCLA who is studying human-black bear interactions, highlights how local politics and fragmented municipal governance shape not only how animals are managed but also where they appear. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) “Sierra Madre has an ordinance requiring everyone to have bear-resistant trash cans,” Sherman noted. “Neighboring Arcadia doesn’t.” This kind of patchwork governance, Sherman said, can influence where wild animals ultimately spend their time, creating a mosaic of risk and opportunity for species whose ranges extend across multiple jurisdictions.Cultural values also play a role. Thriving populations of non-native birds, such as Amazon parrots and peacocks, illustrate how aesthetic preferences and everyday choices can significantly influence the city’s ecological makeup in lasting ways.Sherman also pointed to subtler, often overlooked influences, such as policing and surveillance infrastructure. Ideally, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife would be the first agency to respond in a “wildlife situation,” as Sherman put it. But, he said, what often ends up happening is that people default to calling the police, especially when the circumstances involve animals that some urban-dwelling humans may find threatening, like bears.Police departments typically do not possess the same expertise and ability as CDFW to manage and then relocate bears. If a bear poses a threat to human life, police policy is to kill the bear. However, protocols for responding to wildlife conflicts that are not life-threatening can vary from one community to another. And how police use non-lethal methods of deterrence — such as rubber bullets and loud noises — can shape bear behavior.Meanwhile, the growing prevalence of security cameras and motion-triggered alerts has provided residents with new forms of visibility into urban biodiversity. “That might mean that people are suddenly aware that a coyote is using their yard,” Sherman said. In turn, that could trigger a homeowner to purposefully rework the landscape of their property so as to discourage coyotes from using it. Surveillance systems, he said, are quietly reshaping both public perception and policy around who belongs in the city, and who doesn’t. A mountain lion sits in a tree after being tranquilized along San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood on Oct. 27, 2022. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) Korinna Domingo, founder and director of the Cougar Conservancy, emphasized how cougar behavior in Los Angeles is similarly shaped by decades of urban development, fragmented landscapes and the social and political choices that structure them. “Policies like freeway construction, zoning and even how communities have been historically policed or funded can affect where and how cougars move throughout L.A.,” she said. For example, these forces have prompted cougars to adapt by becoming more nocturnal, using culverts or taking riskier crossings across fragmented landscapes.Urban planning and evolutionary consequences are deeply intertwined, Domingo says. For example, mountain lion populations in the Santa Monica and Santa Ana mountains have shown signs of reduced genetic diversity due to inbreeding, an issue created not by natural processes, but by political and planning decisions — such as freeway construction and zoning decisions— that restricted their movement decades ago.Today, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, is an attempt to rectify that. The massive infrastructure project is happening only, Domingo said, “because of community, scientific and political will all being aligned.”However, infrastructure alone isn’t enough. “You can have habitat connectivity all you want,” she said, but you also have to think about social tolerance. Urban planning that allows for animal movement also increases the likelihood of contact with people, pets and livestock — which means humans need to learn how to interact with wild animals in a healthier way.In L.A., coexistence strategies can look very different depending on the resources, ordinances and attitudes of each community. Although wealthier residents may have the means to build predator-proof enclosures, others lack the financial or institutional support to do the same. And some with the means simply choose not to, instead demanding lethal removal., “Wildlife management is not just about biology,” Domingo said. “It’s about values, power, and really, who’s at the table.”Wildlife management in the United States has long been informed by dominant cultural and religious worldviews, particularly those grounded in notions of human exceptionalism and control over nature. Carlen, Sherman and Domingo all brought up how these values shaped early policies that framed predators as threats to be removed rather than species to be understood or respected. In California, this worldview contributed not only to the widespread killing of wolves, bears and cougars but also to the displacement of American Indian communities whose land-based practices and beliefs conflicted with these approaches. A male peacock makes its way past Ian Choi, 21 months old, standing in front of his home on Altura Road in Arcadia. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) Wildlife management in California, specifically, has long been shaped by these same forces of violence, originating in bounty campaigns not just against predators like cougars and wolves but also against American Indian peoples. These intertwined legacies of removal, extermination and land seizure continue to influence how certain animals and communities are perceived and treated today.For Alan Salazar, a tribal elder with the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, those legacies run deep. “What happened to native peoples happened to our large predators in California,” he said. “Happened to our plant relatives.” Reflecting on the genocide of Indigenous Californians and the coordinated extermination of grizzly bears, wolves and mountain lions, Salazar sees a clear parallel.“There were three parts to our world — the humans, the animals and the plants,” he explained. “We were all connected. We respected all of them.” Salazar explains that his people’s relationship with the land, animals and plants is itself a form of religion, one grounded in ceremony, reciprocity and deep respect. Salazar said his ancestors lived in harmony with mountain lions for over 10,000 years, not by eliminating them but by learning from them. Other predators — cougars, bears, coyotes and wolves — were also considered teachers, honored through ceremony and studied for their power and intelligence. “Maybe we had a better plan on how to live with mountain lions, wolves and bears,” he said. “Maybe you should look at tribal knowledge.”He views the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing — for which he is a Native American consultant — as a cultural opportunity. “It’s not just for mountain lions,” he said. “It’s for all animals. And that’s why I wanted to be involved.” He believes the project has already helped raise awareness and shift perceptions about coexistence and planning, and hopes that it will help native plants, animals and peoples.As L.A. continues to grapple with the future of wildlife in its neighborhoods, canyons and corridors, Salazar and others argue that it is an opportunity to rethink the cultural frameworks, governance systems and historical injustices that have long shaped human-animal relations in the city. Whether through policy reform, neighborhood education or sacred ceremony, residents need reminders that evolutionary futures are being shaped not only in forests and preserves but right here, across freeways, backyards and local council meetings. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing under construction over the 101 Freeway near Liberty Canyon Road in Agoura Hills on July 12, 2024. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) The research makes clear that wildlife is not simply adapting to urban environments in isolation; it is adapting to a range of factors, including policing, architecture and neighborhood design. Carlen believes this opens a crucial frontier for interdisciplinary research, especially in cities like Los Angeles, where uneven geographies, biodiversity and political decisions intersect daily. “I think there’s a lot of injustice in cities that are happening to both humans and wildlife,” she said. “And I think the potential is out there for justice to be brought to both of those things.”

Something Strange Is Happening to Tomatoes Growing on the Galápagos Islands

Scientists say wild tomato plants on the archipelago's western islands are experiencing "reverse evolution" and reverting back to ancestral traits

Something Strange Is Happening to Tomatoes Growing on the Galápagos Islands Scientists say wild tomato plants on the archipelago’s western islands are experiencing “reverse evolution” and reverting back to ancestral traits Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent July 9, 2025 4:29 p.m. Scientists are investigating the production of ancestral alkaloids by tomatoes in the Galápagos Islands. Adam Jozwiak / University of California, Riverside Some tomatoes growing on the Galápagos Islands appear to be going back in time by producing the same toxins their ancestors did millions of years ago. Scientists describe this development—a controversial process known as “reverse evolution”—in a June 18 paper published in the journal Nature Communications. Tomatoes are nightshades, a group of plants that also includes eggplants, potatoes and peppers. Nightshades, also known as Solanaceae, produce bitter compounds called alkaloids, which help fend off hungry bugs, animals and fungi. When plants produce alkaloids in high concentrations, they can sicken the humans who eat them. To better understand alkaloid synthesis, researchers traveled to the Galápagos Islands, the volcanic chain roughly 600 miles off the coast of mainland Ecuador made famous by British naturalist Charles Darwin. They gathered and studied more than 30 wild tomato plants growing in different places on various islands. The Galápagos tomatoes are the descendents of plants from South America that were probably carried to the archipelago by birds. The team’s analyses revealed that the tomatoes growing on the eastern islands were behaving as expected, by producing alkaloids that are similar to those found in modern, cultivated varieties. But those growing on the western islands, they found, were creating alkaloids that were more closely related to those produced by eggplants millions of years ago. Tomatoes growing on the western islands (shown here) are producing ancestral alkaloids.  Adam Jozwiak / University of California, Riverside Researchers suspect the environment may be responsible for the plants’ unexpected return to ancestral alkaloids. The western islands are much younger than the eastern islands, so the soil is less developed and the landscape is more barren. To survive in these harsh conditions, perhaps it was advantageous for the tomato plants to revert back to older alkaloids, the researchers posit. “The plants may be responding to an environment that more closely resembles what their ancestors faced,” says lead author Adam Jozwiak, a biochemist at the University of California, Riverside, to BBC Wildlife’s Beki Hooper. However, for now, this is just a theory. Scientists say they need to conduct more research to understand why tomato plants on the western islands have adapted this way. Scientists were able to uncover the underlying molecular mechanisms at play: Four amino acids in a single enzyme appear to be responsible for the reversion back to the ancestral alkaloids, they found. They also used evolutionary modeling to confirm the direction of the adaptation—that is, that the tomatoes on the western islands had indeed returned to an earlier, ancestral state. Among evolutionary biologists, “reverse evolution” is somewhat contentious. The commonly held belief is that evolution marches forward, not backward. It’s also difficult to prove an organism has reverted back to an older trait through the same genetic pathways. But, with the new study, researchers say they’ve done exactly that. “Some people don’t believe in this,” says Jozwiak in a statement. “But the genetic and chemical evidence points to a return to an ancestral state. The mechanism is there. It happened.” So, if “reverse evolution” happened in wild tomatoes, could something similar happen in humans? In theory, yes, but it would take a long time, Jozwiak says. “If environmental conditions shifted dramatically over long timescales, it’s possible that traits from our distant past could re-emerge, but whether that ever happens is highly uncertain,” Jozwiak tells Newsweek’s Daniella Gray. “It’s speculative and would take millions of years, if at all.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Lifesize herd of puppet animals begins climate action journey from Africa to Arctic Circle

The Herds project from the team behind Little Amal will travel 20,000km taking its message on environmental crisis across the worldHundreds of life-size animal puppets have begun a 20,000km (12,400 mile) journey from central Africa to the Arctic Circle as part of an ambitious project created by the team behind Little Amal, the giant puppet of a Syrian girl that travelled across the world.The public art initiative called The Herds, which has already visited Kinshasa and Lagos, will travel to 20 cities over four months to raise awareness of the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Hundreds of life-size animal puppets have begun a 20,000km (12,400 mile) journey from central Africa to the Arctic Circle as part of an ambitious project created by the team behind Little Amal, the giant puppet of a Syrian girl that travelled across the world.The public art initiative called The Herds, which has already visited Kinshasa and Lagos, will travel to 20 cities over four months to raise awareness of the climate crisis.It is the second major project from The Walk Productions, which introduced Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet, to the world in Gaziantep, near the Turkey-Syria border, in 2021. The award-winning project, co-founded by the Palestinian playwright and director Amir Nizar Zuabi, reached 2 million people in 17 countries as she travelled from Turkey to the UK.The Herds’ journey began in Kinshasa’s Botanical Gardens on 10 April, kicking off four days of events. It moved on to Lagos, Nigeria, the following week, where up to 5,000 people attended events performed by more than 60 puppeteers.On Friday the streets of Dakar in Senegal will be filled with more than 40 puppet zebras, wildebeest, monkeys, giraffes and baboons as they run through Médina, one of the busiest neighbourhoods, where they will encounter a creation by Fabrice Monteiro, a Belgium-born artist who lives in Senegal, and is known for his large-scale sculptures. On Saturday the puppets will be part of an event in the fishing village of Ngor.The Herds’ 20,000km journey began in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photograph: Berclaire/walk productionsThe first set of animal puppets was created by Ukwanda Puppetry and Designs Art Collective in Cape Town using recycled materials, but in each location local volunteers are taught how to make their own animals using prototypes provided by Ukwanda. The project has already attracted huge interest from people keen to get involved. In Dakar more than 300 artists applied for 80 roles as artists and puppet guides. About 2,000 people will be trained to make the puppets over the duration of the project.“The idea is that we’re migrating with an ever-evolving, growing group of animals,” Zuabi told the Guardian last year.Zuabi has spoken of The Herds as a continuation of Little Amal’s journey, which was inspired by refugees, who often cite climate disaster as a trigger for forced migration. The Herds will put the environmental emergency centre stage, and will encourage communities to launch their own events to discuss the significance of the project and get involved in climate activism.The puppets are created with recycled materials and local volunteers are taught how to make them in each location. Photograph: Ant Strack“The idea is to put in front of people that there is an emergency – not with scientific facts, but with emotions,” said The Herds’ Senegal producer, Sarah Desbois.She expects thousands of people to view the four events being staged over the weekend. “We don’t have a tradition of puppetry in Senegal. As soon as the project started, when people were shown pictures of the puppets, they were going crazy.”Little Amal, the puppet of a Syrian girl that has become a symbol of human rights, in Santiago, Chile on 3 January. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesGrowing as it moves, The Herds will make its way from Dakar to Morocco, then into Europe, including London and Paris, arriving in the Arctic Circle in early August.

Dead, sick pelicans turning up along Oregon coast

So far, no signs of bird flu but wildlife officials continue to test the birds.

Sick and dead pelicans are turning up on Oregon’s coast and state wildlife officials say they don’t yet know why. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says it has collected several dead brown pelican carcasses for testing. Lab results from two pelicans found in Newport have come back negative for highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as bird flu, the agency said. Avian influenza was detected in Oregon last fall and earlier this year in both domestic animals and wildlife – but not brown pelicans. Additional test results are pending to determine if another disease or domoic acid toxicity caused by harmful algal blooms may be involved, officials said. In recent months, domoic acid toxicity has sickened or killed dozens of brown pelicans and numerous other wildlife in California. The sport harvest for razor clams is currently closed in Oregon – from Cascade Head to the California border – due to high levels of domoic acid detected last fall.Brown pelicans – easily recognized by their large size, massive bill and brownish plumage – breed in Southern California and migrate north along the Oregon coast in spring. Younger birds sometimes rest on the journey and may just be tired, not sick, officials said. If you find a sick, resting or dead pelican, leave it alone and keep dogs leashed and away from wildlife. State wildlife biologists along the coast are aware of the situation and the public doesn’t need to report sick, resting or dead pelicans. — Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

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