Narwhals depend on sea ice habitat for feeding, protection from orcas, and calving in ways that make them among the most climate-vulnerable Arctic marine mammals, with welfare implications across their annual cycle.
Narwhal winter welfare is shaped by the sea ice conditions that simultaneously protect them from orcas and risk trapping them in ice leads. A narwhal successfully feeding under stable pack ice is in its optimal welfare environment — safe from predation, able to meet nutritional needs, and in the social environment it evolved for. A narwhal trapped in a closing savssat faces progressive oxygen depletion, predation, and eventual drowning. These mass entrapment events, while historically natural, may increase in frequency and unpredictability as climate change alters ice dynamics. The overlap of indigenous harvest rights with welfare concerns in savssat events creates genuine ethical complexity that requires respectful engagement.