Narwhals are among the most specialised Arctic cetaceans, and climate change is disrupting their icy habitat and food supply with serious welfare consequences.
As specialists of a disappearing habitat, narwhals face compounding welfare pressures. Acoustic disturbance from ships causes panic responses that can lead to stranding or exhaustion. Ice entrapment events, in which narwhals are trapped in shrinking ice leads, cause mass mortality with acute suffering. Prey shifts driven by warming further compromise body condition.