This year, it’s happening again – the short video above, less than 3 minutes, shows the most recent footage. Nick Sundt of World Wildlife Fund has been keeping me posted on the issue, and updates regularly on his blog.
The summer sea ice is home to walruses, particularly females and their young. As the ice melts, it recedes from shore and less and less is found over the shallower waters where walruses feed. Eventually, with no suitable ice to be found near their feeding areas, the walruses are forced to head for land and haul-out along the coast. See how radio-tagged walruses head for shore as sea ice retreats in this USGS animation covering the period from 17 July to 12 September 2011.
As we recently reported, by 17 August, approximately 8,000 walruses were observed during a survey flight of the Chukchi Offshore Monitoring in Drilling Area (COMIDA) marine mammal aerial survey project. Another COMIDA flight two days later (19 August) reported [PDF] their numbers had grown to about 10,000 walruses
Below, I’m reposting last year’s summary of the Walrus haul outs along the coasts of Alaska and Russia, as the sea ice minimum approaches. I can’t improve on the information in this video, so if you haven’t seen it, it’s a good 10 minute summary of an emerging wildlife catastrophe.
UPDATE: LATimes has more details.
Walruses normally spend summers far offshore in the Chukchi Sea, foraging for food on the relatively shallow continental shelf and resting on floating ice. But much of the ice isn’t there this year. So the animals are forced either to dive unusually deep off the continental shelf looking for food or to choose — as many apparently have — to lumber ashore and try to find food there.
This is the fourth recent year that the barren coast near Point Lay, Alaska, has hosted the massive walrus gathering.
For an animal being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act, the unusual behavior is problematic. Most of the animals clustered onshore are females with calves, and calves can be trampled to death when so many animals crowd together, said Chad Jay, walrus project leader for the USGS’ Alaska Science Center.
Moreover, scientists aren’t sure there is adequate food for the animals so near shore. Adult walruses consume more than 100 pounds of food a day, mainly clams, snails and marine worms foraged from the ocean floor. That’s why they prefer not to venture into deep water off the continental shelf, now the only place left with sea ice during the summer.
“They become a little more restricted in the areas they can forage, because they now can only access what’s available from shore,” Jay said in an interview with The Times.
Walruses have been swimming as far as 40 miles offshore from the haul-out to find food, he said.
Walruses:
Sorry for making life tougher for you guys. Hopefully, life doesn’t become impossible in the future.