Eqalugaq – Status and trends in polar cod (Boreogadus saida) populations in Greenland
Research leader: Caroline Bouchard, researcher at Greenland Climate Research Center, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources (GINR)
Other participants:
Kristine Lynge-Pedersen, Researcher, GINR
Søren L. Post, Researcher, GINR
Søren S. Nielsen, Director, Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat
Parnuna E. Dahl, Consultant, Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat
Patrick Farnole, Ph.D. candidate, University of Victoria
Teunis Jansen, Senior researcher, GINR and DTU-Aqua
Keywords: polar cod, Boreogadus saida, climate change, knowledge co-production
Area, purpose and research questions:
Eqalugaq (polar cod, Boreogadus saida) is a key species in Arctic marine ecosystems. Any changes in the species populations in response to climate warming will have cascading effects on entire Arctic marine ecosystems and the countless services they provide to Greenlandic society including recreational fishing and hunting, commercial fisheries, ecotourism, and spiritual value. With a knowledge co-production approach, the project has the main objective of determining whether polar cod populations of Greenland are stable, declining or increasing, and whether there have been any changes in their abundance or distribution over time. We will perform interviews with fishers and hunters in the region of Uummannaq to collect users’ knowledge and combine it with data available at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources (GINR) to answer our research questions.
Inclusion of society and dissemination:
We will partner with local stakeholders, KNAPK and KNAPP to develop relevant interview questions, identify potential interviewees and facilitate the communication with the participants. We will communicate the project’s relevant findings, pictures, and stories through local media (radio, newspapers), GINR’s website and social media.
We will present the project in different schools of Uummannaq and Nuuk. We will also prepare a public lecture which will be presented at GINR as part of the series ‘’Natur om torsdagen’’, and at another venue in Nuuk (Katuaq or the library for example), with simultaneous translation into Danish/Greenlandic. In collaboration with the Children’s Home in Uummannaq and the Uummannaq Polar Institute, a short documentary and a photo exhibition will be prepared.
Project start and end date: 15/02/2022 – 15/02/2023.
Granted: 99.200,00 kr.
