. Perhaps even more important was that the noise associated with snowmobile use was said by Inuit to affect how closely narwhal would approach the floe-edge and ultimately affect hunting opportunities.
Finally, a negligible amount of active foraging along the floe-edge based from the campsite was also done on foot. Walking provided the advantage of almost no disturbance. It did, however, have disadvantages. First, only a limited extent of floe-edge could be covered. Second, if a narwhal was shot, the chance of a successful retrieval without a boat was unlikely. Third, venturing any significant distance from camp meant risking exposure to possible deteriorating ice or rapid weather change. Last, it was difficult to be perfectly quiet while walking; some Inuit stated that the sounds of a hunter’s footsteps are interpreted by nearby narwhal as the sound of a polar bear shuffling on the sea ice.
Sit-and-wait foraging mode
At 13:40 hours, we sighted three narwhals moving south from our camp location. They are approximately 200 metres away from our location. They breathe for 8-10 minutes and then one takes a very deep breath and dives. The others follow almost immediately afterwards. They were very large in size with white coloration.Lee, Field Notes, 29/06/96
The sit-and-wait foraging mode was observed when hunters deployed a campsite where they searched for narwhal by remaining stationary for an extended period of time. The sit-and-wait foraging mode comprised all of the time spent by hunters who were stationary in their campsites. Although this included additional activities such as cooking, cleaning, resting, preparing and repairing equipment, hunters were always vigilant for narwhal while remaining stationary in their campsite. Overall, the average length of stay at the floe-edge for the 14 hunts observed over these three years was two and a half days (SD = 1.74; Range = 0.2 - 7.4 days). Given this average length of stay at the floe-edge, each hunt established at least one camp (Table 4). In fact, the average number of campsites for all trips was two (see Table 4) (SD = 0.97).
Camp routine was as such that at least one person was on alert and scanning for whales at all times in multi-occupant camps. This explains why the average number of groups per camp in all three years was two even though seven  of the 14 hunts that were accompanied through their entirety were by single hunters (see Table 2). Solitary camping was actually relatively rare as visits from passing hunters were frequent. This was usually due to the high camp density location chosen by the solitary camper. Although narwhal was the primary objective while waiting in camp, Inuit were also continuously scanning the local environment for deteriorating ice conditions, weather conditions and polar bears.
Comparison of foraging mode
The time spent engaged in each foraging mode reveals the dominant search behaviour of Inuit narwhal hunting at the floe-edge. Of the overall 840 hours spent at the floe-edge for the 14 trips, an average of 94% of hunters’ time was spent in the sit-and-wait foraging mode (SD = 3.62; Figure 3; Table 5).
A 3 (years) x 2 (foraging mode) mixed-model ANOVA was conducted, where years was set as the between-subject factor and foraging mode was set as the within-subject factor. The analysis revealed a significant main effect for foraging mode, F (1, 11) = 42.95, p < 0.01; that is, hunters spent significantly more time in sit-and-wait foraging than in active foraging. As expected, the interaction between years and foraging mode was not significant, F (2, 11) = 3.42, p = NS; that is, the pattern of relatively higher time spent in sit-and-wait foraging was consistent over the years.
Despite the large number of trips reviewed here, and the large amount of time spent in both modes of foraging, the rate of successful narwhal capture was low. Overall, only one narwhal was captured. Generally, even the most assiduous hunter was often prevented from having success because of numerous environmental barriers, such as high waves or fog along the floe edge 