Climate change blamed for beaching of 35,000 walruses on Alaskan coastline

Extract from The Guardian

Updated yesterday at 3:22pmThu 2 Oct 2014, 3:22pm

Photo: An estimated 35,000 walruses gather on a beach in Alaska, in a phenomenon attributed to climate change. (Reuters: Corey Accardo/NOAA/NMFS/AFSC/NMML)

Map: United States

At least 35,000 Pacific walruses have beached themselves on a remote Alaskan coastline in a phenomenon blamed on the melting of arctic ice due to climate change, experts say.

Initially there had been only 1,500 of the tusked animals counted on one beach at Point Lay, 1130 kilometres north of Archorage, but in recent days that number has exploded.
"Our best estimate is almost a 24-fold increase," said Megan Ferguson of the Aerial Surveys of Arctic Marine Mammals.
The walruses "are hauling out on land in a spectacle that has become all too common in six of the last eight years as a consequence of climate-induced warming", the US Geological Survey (USGS) said in a statement.
The USGS said summer sea ice was retreating far north of the continental shelf waters of the Chukchi Sea, which is in US and Russian waters, in "a condition that did not occur a decade ago".
"To keep up with their normal resting periods between feeding bouts to the seafloor, walruses have simply hauled out onto shore," it added.

 

Photo: Authorities fear walruses could been killed in the event of a stampede (AFP: Corey Accardo)

Walruses also used sea ice platforms to give birth, nurse their young and elude predators, and when it was not existent they hauled themselves up on land.
"One of the differences between this haul out and other ones is the sheer size and number of animals coming to shore," USGS ecologist Chadwick Jay said.
US Fish and Wildlife Service said the most pressing concern with such a massive gathering was the possible mortality rate, caused largely by stampedes.
"The mass movement can be treacherous for younger walruses [that] can be trampled by a stampede triggered by aircraft or predators, such as grizzly bears and polar bears," biologist Joel Garlich-Miller said.
Aerial Surveys said they had spotted more brown bears than previously estimated along the same stretch of coastline, while gray whales that had swum in the area up to the 1990s had disappeared.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the Pacific walrus population was between 200,000 to 250,000 animals, although the exact number was unknown.