[Vision2020] Thousands of walruses flee melting sea ice for shore

[Saundra Lund]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39157633/ns/us_news-environment/

Thousands of walruses flee melting sea ice for shore
Stampede killing females, children feared; 'no sign of Arctic recovery,'
expert says

By Seth Borenstein
AP

WASHINGTON - Tens of thousands of walruses have come ashore in northwest
Alaska because the sea ice they normally rest on has melted. 

U.S. government 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 walruses "stretch out 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 do not 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."