Warming Seas Draw Fin, Humpback and Minke Whales Into East Greenland 'Feeding Frenzies'

Rising ocean temperatures and shrinking sea ice have opened up the East Greenland coast to large numbers of baleen whales that historically were rarely seen there, according to a study in Frontiers in Marine Science led by Professor Mads Peter Heide-Jorgensen of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources. Fin whales, humpback whales and common minke whales are now regularly forming mixed "feeding frenzies" as far north as 70 degrees latitude.

Sea surface temperatures east of Greenland have risen by about 2 degrees Celsius since the 1990s, and the summer sea-ice edge has retreated sharply northward since the mid-2000s. To track the change, researchers combined the first systematic aircraft surveys of the coast, in 2015 and 2024, with additional airborne observations, testimony from Inuit hunters, ship-based sightings dating to 1987, and tracking data from 15 satellite-tagged whales.

The results show a marked shift between 1987 and 2024. No humpback whales were recorded until 2006; sightings climbed to 26 by 2015 and more than 150 by 2024. Minke whale sightings, rare before 1995, reached 10 to 20 a year after 2001, while fin whale sightings rose sharply throughout the period. In August 2025, a ship crew reported an aggregation of up to 50 baleen whales together off the east coast near 69 degrees north. The researchers estimate at least 4,000 humpback, 6,000 fin and 6,000 minke whales visited the Greenland Sea in the summer of 2024 alone.

The whales are drawn mainly by capelin, a cold-loving fish that has shifted its feeding grounds toward the Greenland Sea from warmer waters near Iceland since the mid-2000s. "East Greenland is undergoing a major ecological regime shift," Heide-Jorgensen said, noting that ice-associated species such as narwhals are increasingly sharing habitat with, or being displaced by, the temperate baleen whales. There are currently no commercial capelin fisheries in the region.