A melting Arctic hits home - Opinion
As the Arctic melts due to climate change, its iconic marine mammals are feeling the heat. The Arctic Ocean held less sea ice in June of this year than any previous June on record. For the last four summers, the ice melt has exceeded what even pessimistic climate models predicted only a few years ago.Pacific walruses continue to wait for ice in Point Lay - ktuu.com
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Changes this large impose consequences. Since prehistoric times, up to 250,000 walrus have moved northward each summer into the Chukchi Sea, following retreating sea ice. There, off the northern coast of Alaska, walrus feed on clams in the seabed, resting on ice between their dives. Female walrus nurse their young on the ice floes. When the ice rapidly disappeared there during the summer of 2007, thousands of walrus were forced onto land where they risked trampling deaths, predation by bears and depletion of food sources.
With upwards of 20,000 walruses crammed so tightly together, a stampede of mothers and their newborn calves could be devastating to the walrus population.Flashback: Starving Polar Bears Turning to Cannibalism : TreeHugger
"Anything can spook 'em from a polar bear, a brown bear, a dog, a man, boat going by, an airplane going over," said Point Lay Fire Chief Bill Tracey.
"[Polar bears] are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don't have access to their usual food sources," said Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.Walrus size
Weight: Bulls 2 tons, Cows over 1 ton.Video Footage Shows Huge Walrus Haul-Out Along Shoreline of Alaska's Point Lay | WWF Climate Blog
[If CO2 is so bad for walruses, why are there so many of them?]
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