This Week on “The Morning Show”: PEM Narwhal Exhibition with Curator Jane Winchell
December 30, 2024This Week on “The Morning Show”:
PEM Narwhal Exhibition with
Curator Jane Winchell
Narwhals are intriguing and mysterious. I had the pleasure of visiting PEM’s fascinating exhibit featuring these diminutive whales a couple weeks ago, and then followed up with a fun and informative conversation with Jane Winchell, Curator of Natural History and Director of the Art and Nature Center at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, whose interview will air this Thursday, January 2nd.
The exhibition is titled “Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend,” and was organized by the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Exhibition Service.
Jane and I spoke about the distinctive characteristics of narwhals, sometimes known as “unicorns of the sea” because of their long spiral tusk. She discuss narwhals’ use of echolocation, how they utilize their tusks, their social structure, and the role they play in Intuit history, culture, and legend.
She also talks about the impact of climate change on Arctic ecosystems, including diminishing sea ice and warming waters, and how these developments have contributed to the appearance of hybrid animals such as grolar bears, a mix of grizzly and polar bears, and narlugas, a mix of narwhals and beluga whales.
Jane reports that she’s encountered numerous people who think that narwhals “are not real, that because people compare them to unicorns, they believe they are similarly imaginary.” For anyone who needs proof, the exhibition continues at PEM through June 15th, 2025.
For more information visit https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/narwhal-revealing-an-arctic-legend.
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