A passing icebreaker rescues lost beluga recordings from Arctic sea ice

A buoy with researchers' recording equipment had come free from its anchor and been trapped in ice.

By Reuters August 2, 2019
2664

A passing icebreaker managed to rescue lost recordings of beluga whale songs in Canadian Arctic waters last month.

Belugas are well-known for their vocalizations, and scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego had placed to recorders on buoys as part of a research project. But for two years, ice conditions prevented efforts to reach them.

By chance, the Swedish icebreaker Oden passed through the area on a research voyage with Canadian and American scientists on board and was able to salvage the buoy, which had broken loose and become trapped in sea ice.

A helicopter from the Swedish icebreaker Oden lands on an ice floe to pick up crew members involved in the retrieval of a scientific acoustic recorder containing valuable data on Arctic marine life movements in the Canadian Arctic July 25, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. (Inner Space Center via Reuters)