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Close Topic OptionsWalruses Crowd Ashore, Die In Stampedes
Walruses Crowd Ashore Die Stampedes - Sciences, Education, Art, Writing, UFO - Posted: 15th Dec, 2007 - 2:32pm
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Walruses Crowd Ashore, Die In Stampedes
In this mornings Anchorage Daily News I saw this article and thought it was sad but interesting. I know that there is a number of concerns with global warming and the animals that count on the ice that is melting. It seems that they mostly congregated on the Russia side so we (in Alaska) didn't lose a lot like they did.
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| In what some scientists see as another alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes this year after the disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in extraordinary numbers. The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia. "It was a pretty sobering year - tough on walruses," said Joel Garlach-Miller, a walrus expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Unlike seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely. The giant, tusked mammals typically clamber onto the sea ice to rest, or haul themselves onto land for just a few weeks at a time. But ice disappeared in the Chukchi Sea this year because of warm summer weather, ocean currents and persistent eastern winds, Garlach-Miller said. As a result, walruses came ashore earlier and stayed longer, congregating in extremely high numbers, with herds as big as 40,000 at Point Shmidt, a spot that had not been used by walruses as a "haulout" for a century, scientists said. Walruses are vulnerable to stampedes when they gather in such large numbers. The appearance of a polar bear, a hunter or a low-flying airplane can send them rushing to the water. Biologist Anatoly Kochnev of Russia's Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography estimated 3,000 to 4,000 walruses out of a population of perhaps 200,000 died, or two or three times the usual number on shoreline haulouts. He said the animals only started appearing onshore for extended periods in the late 1990s after the sea ice receded. "The reason is the global warming," Kochnev said. |
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