Cetacean Seniors

Whales that give new meaning to longevity

Like a stream of massive torpedoes, thousands of blubbery dynamos are making a southwest migration through the icy Arctic Ocean. They’re bowhead whales heading toward winter haunts in the Bering Sea, just north of the Aleutian Islands.

Along the way, Inupiat Eskimos in Alaska will legally harvest several of these endangered mammals—30-to-60-foot-long behemoths that sometimes tip the scales at 50 tons or more.