What do killer whales dine on in Canada's remote Arctic waters? "Whatever they can catch," local Inuits say, recounting harrowing observations of pods of orcas drowning adult bowhead whales, tossing narwhals as though they were soccer balls, and ripping apart beluga whales. Normally, such stories might be considered just anecdotes. But in an unusual collaboration, marine biologists have helped confirm the tales by talking to the hunters who know the whales best.

To gather observations of killer whales (Orcinus orca), the world's top marine predator, two scientists working with an Inuktitut-speaking interpreter interviewed 105 Inuit hunters, who ranged in age from 30 to over 90 and live in 11 communities along the coastal edge of Nunavut, Canada's northernmost territory. The hunters' accounts proved to be "a gold mine," says Steven Ferguson, a marine biologist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Winnipeg who led the study. The vastness of the region, coupled with the low density of orcas, makes a traditional scientific study difficult. "It would take decades of work, with researchers identifying then following individual whales, to gain this kind of knowledge," says Ferguson, who, because the whales are so widely dispersed, has yet to see an orca in these Arctic waters.

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