Aerial views of migrating land mammals are not that unusual today, but videos of migrating Arctic marine mammals were—until this past summer.  

A camera crew aboard a helicopter captured the summer migration of the narwhal, an elusive, medium-size whale, for a natural history unit of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). According to a news story from the BBC, the bird’s eye view of the narwhals’ journey along fissures in melting sea ice from Baffin Bay and other deep waters to the coastlines of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic was a risky venture.

First the crew had to locate pods, or groups, of the creatures in an area described as “the size of Scotland,” where spring melting made the ice cover dangerous for human travel. Once they found the narwhals, cameramen mounted their equipment to the helicopter and, hoping for “good weather,” began filming the migration from the air. The news story contains a video clip from the BBC television series.

Justin Anderson, program producer, said, “This is the first time the narwhal migration has been filmed this way” He described the sight as “something from mythology – and we were all just completely gobsmacked when we saw them.”

Narwhals have long been likened to the unicorn of mythology because of the long spiral tusk that grows through their upper lips. In the adult male, the tusk can grow up to 10 feet long. Found only in the Arctic, narwhals average 13 to 16 feet in length. No one knows yet why the narwhals migrate in the summer. They feed in the deep waters in the winter and hardly feed at all in their summer locations.

Researchers are interested in learning more about the ranges of the narwhals’ migration and their social behavior as well as the impact of changes in the Arctic ice cover.