"Alaska Inuit hunter John Goodwin for decades has hunted oogruk, the bearded seal, a marine mammal prized for its meat, oil and hide.

The largest of Alaska's ice seals uses sea ice to rest and birth pups, and after the long winter, when ice breaks into floes, there's a window of opportunity for Goodwin to leave his home in Kotzebue and motor his boat between ice panels, shoot seals and butcher them before they migrate north through the Bering Strait.

A hunting season that used to last weeks, however, has shrunk. Ice that formerly froze 5-feet thick or more is a fraction of that. Ice disappears quickly, and so do the seals."

Dan Joling reports for the Associated Press December 27, 2015. [2]