Scores of walrus carcasses found on Arctic coast

By DAN JOLING, The Associated Press

Up to 200 dead walruses have been spotted on the shore of Chukchi Sea on Alaska’s northwest coast. Federal wildlife researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey on their way to a walrus tagging project spotted 100 to 200 carcasses near Icy Cape about 140 miles southwest of Barrow. They report the dead walruses appeared to be mostly new calves or yearlings. However, neither the age of the dead walruses nor the cause of death is known, said Bruce Woods, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It’s just too early to say until we can get someone on the ground,” Woods said. About 3,500 walruses were reported last week at the Icy Cape haulout site, where walruses rest from feeding forays. Young animals can be crushed in stampedes when a herd is startled by a polar bear, human hunters or even a low-flying airplane. This is the second time in three years that walruses have congregated in large numbers on the Alaska shore rather than the edge of the sea ice, which moves north in the summer as temperatures rise and south in the fall as temperatures cool. Walrus cannot swim indefinitely and historically have used sea ice as a platform for diving in the Bering and Chukchi seas for clams and other food on the ocean floor. In recent years, however, sea ice has receded far beyond the outer continental shelf, forcing walruses to choose between riding the ice over waters too deep to reach clams or onto shore. New research Thursday showed the ice cap this summer was slightly larger than in 2007 or 2008. But scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which released that information, said a slower melt-off of sea ice has occurred in given years before without changing the strong downward trend of recent decades. … Shaye Wolf, spokeswoman for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the walrus deaths were alarming. “It provides another indicator that climate change is taking a brutal toll on the Arctic,” she said. …

Scores of walrus carcasses found on Arctic coast via Apocadocs