An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 walruses, mainly mothers and their calves, have abandoned the shrinking and thinning ice of the Chukchi Sea and hauled out on the Alaska shoreline, according to researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The researchers said the number of walruses seeking refuge on land was unprecedented on the Alaskan side of the Chukchi Sea and surpassed similar mass movements by walruses in the region in 2007 and 2009. Those movements of large numbers of walruses created packed beaches on the Russian and U.S. coasts of the Chukchi Sea that “led to the trampling and death of hundreds of walruses in Alaska and thousands in Russia,” according to a report by the USGS. Scientists said the walruses apparently made the mass migration to shore this summer as sea ice weakened and declined and became a less reliable platform for resting and feeding. The USGS has said that if sea ice declines continue, the Alaskan walrus population may well go extinct or drop sharply by the end of this century.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service