Federal scientists say this massive move to shore by walruses is unusual in the United States. But it has happened at least twice before, in 2007 and 2009. In those years Arctic sea ice also was at or near record low levels.
The population of walruses stretches "for one mile or more. This is just packed shoulder-to-shoulder," U.S. Geological Survey biologist Anthony Fischbach said in a telephone interview from Alaska. He estimated their number at tens of thousands.
Scientists with two federal agencies are most concerned about the one-ton female walruses stampeding and crushing each other and their smaller calves near Point Lay, Alaska, on the Chukchi Sea. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to change airplane flight patterns to avoid spooking the animals. Officials have also asked locals to be judicious about hunting, said agency spokesman Bruce Woods.
The federal government is in a year-long process to determine if walruses should be put on the endangered species list.
Fischbach said scientists don't know how long the walrus camp-out will last, but there should be enough food for all of them.
During normal summers, the males go off to play in the Bering Sea, while the females raise their young in the Chukchi. The females rest on sea ice and dive from it to the sea floor for clams and worms.
"When they no longer have a place to rest, they need to go some place and it's a long commute," Fischbach said. "This is directly related to the lack of sea ice."
Loss of sea ice in the Chukchi this summer has surprised scientists because last winter lots of old established sea ice floated into the region, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. But that has disappeared.
Although last year was a slight improvement over previous years, Serreze says there's been a long-term decline that he blames on global warming.
"We'll likely see more summers like this," he said. "There is no sign of Arctic recovery."
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Online
U.S. Geological Survey walrus research site: http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/walrus/index.html
The National Snow and Ice Data Center: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html
The cost of fuel tripling will have a lot more to do with our profligate use of it than with government regulation. Supply and demand.
This is a January 2010 article "Is Antarctica Melting", from NASA:
"Gravity data collected from space using NASA's Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002. The latest data reveal that Antarctica is losing ice at an accelerating rate, too. How is it possible for surface melting to decrease, but for the continent to lose mass anyway? The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.
The retreat of West Antarctica's glaciers is being accelerated by ice shelf collapse. Ice shelves are the part of a glacier that extends past the grounding line towards the ocean they are the most vulnerable to warming seas. A longstanding theory in glaciology is that these ice shelves tend to buttress (support the end wall of) glaciers, with their mass slowing the ice movement towards the sea, and this was confirmed by the spectacular collapse of the Rhode Island-sized Larsen B shelf along the Eastern edge of the Antarctic Peninsula in 2002. The disintegration, which was caught on camera by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imaging instruments on board its Terra and Aqua satellites, was dramatic: it took just three weeks to crumble a 12,000-year old ice shelf. Over the next few years, satellite radar data showed that some of the ice streams flowing behind Larsen B had accelerated significantly, while others, still supported by smaller ice shelves, had not 9. This dynamic process of ice flowing downhill to the sea is what enables Antarctica to continue losing mass even as surface melting declines."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antarctica_Melting.html
At least you must not be that busy to come up with all these different paranoia induced "scenarios" in your head, are you an author? Are you one of the geniuses who "predicted" that Obama was gonna swoop in and take all our guns?
Don't you guys ever notice that the only people who accept y'alls junk-science are eachother?
Ever think about why people like y'all don't get paid the big bucks to collect and analyze scientific data? It takes more than hearing a few rumors to call yourself a scientist.
Liberals invented the atomic bomb, along with all the other technology that makes America the dominating force in the world. What have repubs done besides spread fear in order to scare people into voting for them and/or try to cover up scandals of their own making?
food wars... that will come when the usa drops food exports to 3rd countries on a large scale because suddenly the cost of energy has tripled and we have our hands full just feeding ourselves.
meanwhile... not many ever mention the fact that the antarctic ice pack is growing at a record pace. how does that fit into global warming? i'm sure you'll think of something.
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2007/10/antarctica-ice-cap-growth-reaches-record-high-levels-photos/
The Mad Hatter!
Of course Tea Party's mascot should be the Mad Hatter, with all his nonsense and distorted craziness.
Who are these "millions" that are dying in these "food wars"?
America is the MOST WASTEFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.
We the people are responsible for OVER HALF of the waste produced by the ENTIRE population of the planet, "cutting back" could only benefit the rest of the world.
It's funny how all the anti-science garbage posted here sounds exactly like the communist North Korean propaganda advertised to keep its citizens blind to what is actually happening in the rest of the world.
Go ahead and keep your collective heads in the silt, y'all are worthless to society anyway. Scientists are not politicians, they don't get voted into jobs that require almost a decade of advanced education and training, and they don't even have to look good on camera either.
I suggest y'all try getting a job with the U.S.G.S. as a biologist if y'all think you know better than these guys. Did any of you even graduate high school?
Federal agencies... approved BP oil leak plan for the Gulf of Mexico. In the plan BP planed to protect the Gulf walrus population form oil.
There may have walrus in the Gulf of Mexico a few ice ages back.. but not now.
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There are a lot of Fed agencies that need a 50% budget cut.
@88888, Sure, jumping back into the water would be simple, but as you can see in the first sentence of the article, "The sea ice they normally REST on has melted". When was the last time YOU rested in the water? Again, ignorance is not an excuse and unacceptable.
to vote for lisa
as a write in candidate ..
walrus don't understand nepotism ...
Why do these "experts" fail to mention such a significant fact to the press? Or perhaps it is on the Associated Press' own agenda to withhold such information.
Could it be that they are seeking to fuel the alarm with which some people react to the claim of global warming?
to vote for lisa
as a write in candidate ..
walrus don't understand nepotism ...
the weather has been warmer than average for the last ten years!! we're all doomed!!
dimwits. lets cut back on everything and allow millions to starve and die in wars caused by food shortages.
The Sun really revolves around the Earth, they can't prove that it doesn't...