Globally, Bowhead Whales are closely associated with sea ice, and migrate northwards in summer and southwards in winter in response to the seasonal withdrawal and advancement of the ice edge (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2006). However, 16th and 17th-century whaling logbooks indicate that the East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea subpopulation has a seasonal movement pattern that differs from the other subpopulations, with whales moving south-westwards over the summer from a northern whaling ground occupied in April and May west of Svalbard (77–80.5ºN), towards a southern whaling ground off the east Greenland ice edge (70–75.5ºN) that is occupied during July and August (Southwell 1898, Lydersen et al. 2012). Those movements have recently been supported by satellite tracking and may result from the strong southerly current that runs along the ice edge during summer and carries drifting crustaceans (Lydersen et al. 2012, Kovacs et al. 2020). An equivalent northward movement is presumed to occur during October and November (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2021). Whalers considered that the East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea subpopulation likely spent the winter near Iceland (Southwell 1898). However, satellite-tracking, aerial surveys and acoustic monitoring have revealed a winter presence at high latitude areas around 79ºN in the Fram Strait (Lydersen et al. 2012, Moore et al. 2012, Stafford et al. 2012, Hansen pers. comm.). Bowhead vocalisations including songs and calls were recorded from those areas throughout the year, although were least numerous during summer when the whales are likely distributed across a larger area (Moore et al. 2012, Stafford et al. 2012, Vacquié-Garcia et al. 2017, Hansen pers. comm.). Modelling of recent tag data has shown persistent hotspots of occurrence in the Fram Strait throughout the year, though least extensively in winter (Hamilton et al. 2021).

The habitats occupied in Europe include shallow shelf waters (east coast of Greenland: Boertmann et al. 2009), steeply sloping bottom topography (Lydersen et al. 2012), and oceanic habitat with water depths between 1,000 and 5,000 m depth (Wiig et al. 2008, de Boer et al. 2019, Kovacs et al. 2020). Whales in the Fram Strait and north of Svalbard appear to be adapted to stay in areas with medium ice cover of 50–80% (Lydersen et al. 2012, Vacquié-Garcia et al. 2017), although they have also been recorded in dense pack ice (Stafford et al. 2012, Kovacs et al. 2020) and in open water up to 180 km from the ice edge (Lydersen et al. 2012, de Boer et al. 2019). Tagged animals inhabited areas with sea surface temperatures in the -1.8 to 4.3ºC range (Kovacs et al. 2020).

A tagged whale from the East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea subpopulation had a daily movement rate of around 70 km per day (Lydersen et al. 2012). While the species is capable of diving to at least 582 m, most dives are within the upper 300 m of the water column (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2021).

Bowhead Whales feed by skimming in the water column (including close to the seabed) and at the surface (Sheffield and George 2021). The diet of the East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea subpopulation is poorly documented, but globally the species feeds on zooplankton, including calanoid copepods, and larger crustaceans such as mysids and euphausiids.

Sightings of the East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea subpopulation most usually comprise single animals or small groups of 2–3 animals, but up to 10 have been seen together (Gilg and Born 2005, Wiig et al. 2008, 2010a, Boertmann et al. 2009), and larger aggregations of tens of animals have been reported (de Boer et al. 2019).

The presence of calves (Boertmann et al. 2009, Boertmann and Nielsen 2010), observations of mating groups (Hansen et al. 2018), and singing behaviour (Stafford et al. 2012, Ahonen et al. 2017), supports reproductive activity in the Northeast Water Polyna off northeast Greenland. Calves have also been observed in the semi-permanent polyna located south-west of Franz Josef Land (de Korte and Belikov 1994), and during recent aerial surveys of the Scoresby Sound Polynya (Tervo et al. 2022). Globally, most calves are born between April and June (George et al. 2021), and two newborns were sighted in Scoresby Sound during May (Tervo et al. 2022).

Bowhead Whales are endemic to circumpolar Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. In the North Atlantic, they occur primarily between 60º and 85ºN (Moore and Reeves 1993). Four subpopulations are recognised globally: (1) Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Seas; (2) East Canada-West Greenland; (3) East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea; and (4) Okhotsk Sea (Cooke and Reeves 2018, Baird and Bickham 2021). The subpopulations have been geographically separated during periods of cooler global temperature, by areas of concentrated sea ice which form a physical barrier to whale movements (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2012). However, during warmer periods, the reduction in sea ice can result in open water passages that facilitate movements between the subpopulations.

The distribution of the East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea subpopulation falls almost entirely within Europe, extending from the east coast of Greenland, across the Greenland Sea and Fram Strait, to Svalbard (Norway), and east across the northern Barents Sea to Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya in the Russian Federation (Cooke and Reeves 2018, Kovacs et al. 2020, Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2021, Mishin 2021). That distribution continues east of Europe into the Russian Federation waters of the Kara Sea (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2021). Recent modelling of satellite tag data indicated contemporary hotspots of occurrence in the Fram Strait and around Franz Josef Land (Hamilton et al. 2021).

The southern limit of Bowhead distribution exceptionally reaches Finnmark in northern Norway (Wiig et al. 2010a). The waters around the Jan Mayen Islands (Norway: Hacquebord 2004), and to the north of Iceland (Brown 1986), were historically part of the distribution range (de Jong 1983). Jan Mayen may have supported a calving ground prior to whalers arriving there in the 1600s, and the capture of young animals likely contributed to the fast demise of the local population (Hacquebord 2004). The last reported sighting in Iceland appears to be an animal seen in 1879 (Brown 1986). Neither Jan Mayen nor Iceland are considered important contemporary areas for the species (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2021).

Juvenile Bowhead Whales were reported far south of their core distribution range between 2015 and 2017, off the European coasts of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (de Boer et al. 2017, Whooley and Berrow 2019). The furthest south of these was an animal in Brittany, France at 48ºN. All records occurred in the February to May period.

The Bowhead Whale was protected from commercial whaling by the League of Nations Convention in 1931, and subsequently by the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in 1946. Low levels of subsistence whaling still occur in some parts of its global range; however, the East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea subpopulation remains fully protected. It is listed in Appendix I (species threatened with extinction) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which prohibits international trade.

The species is listed on Appendix I (endangered migratory species) of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (Bonn Convention 1979), and on Appendix II (strictly protected species) of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention). It is included with ‘all cetaceans’ on Annex IV Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora (the Habitats Directive) as a species requiring strict protection across its entire natural range within the EU.