Narrator: Whatís endearing to be said about a 4,000
pound mammal with huge canine tusks?1 Hear the scientists who work with them:
Tony Fischbach: Walruses love to be next to each other.
Sarah Sonsthagen: Theyíre so gregarious.
Tony Fischcbach: Theyíre always checking in with each other, they kind of snuggle on
top of each other.
Chad Jay: They tend to kind of Posey up and have these little bluff charges then at the
last minute dive under the water.
Tony Fischbach: As soon as theyíre concerned about something their first response is to
turn to their companions on the ice pan and sort of sniff them and nudge them, itís almost
as if theyíre saying, ìDid you notice something?î
Sarah Sonsthagen: The pups are like 150 lbs. when theyíre born.
Tony Fischbach: When you see them swimming the calves will be holding on tight to the
mothers back.
Sarah Sonsthagen: Itís just neat to see something so big, so caring.
Narrator: Today, the Pacific walrus is facing new challenges.
This is walrus territory ñ the Chukchi Sea, part of the cold remote Arctic.
This vast shallow sea stretches from the† shores of northern Alaska across to Russia.†
It's the summer range† for Pacific walrus females† and their young.†
Narrator: Over the last 30 years† the Chukchi Sea
has experienced a dramatic Loss of sea ice due to†climate change.
Since 2007, this summer ice retreat has accelerated taking the ice edge into much deeper water.
This has created a new situation for the Pacific walrus.
Tony Fischbach: In 2007 we observed it, uh we dropped our jaws it really wasnít something
we expected to see so soon.
This has forced walruses to come to shore to rest, 40,000 at a time or something that
really hadnít been seen before in the United States.
Narrator: Why does this matter to the walruses?
Chad Jay: They eat things that live on the bottom.
Their main pray item is clams, but they will take a wide variety of organisms on the sea
floor.
Very often marine worms and large snails and other things.
They dive to the bottom and them kind of root around in the sediment with their muzzle and
the whiskers, the vibrice on their muzzle are very sensitive and tactile.
And they kind of use those almost as fingers to sweep the bottom.
Narrator: Most of the worldís ocean is 10,000 feet
deep.
Beneath the Chukchi Sea is an immense continental shelf that is only 150 feet deep.
This vast shallow sea is extremely rich in the clams and worms so vital to the walrus.
Tony Fischbach: Typically theyíll be down at the bottom of the sea for about 7 minutes,
foraging, come back up, breath for two minutes, go back down and do that.
Do that dive after dive after dive for hours on end.
Take a brief rest as maybe they move to another clam bed and continue that.
As far as human memory goes Pacific Walrus females and their young have always rested
on sea ice.
Narrator: But now the summer sea ice is gone more quickly.
This leaves female walrus and their calves with no ice to rest on above their favored
feeding grounds.
Either they travel longer distances to feed, or they have to forage in deeper waters.
Tony Fischbach: Native Alaskanís rely very strongly on Pacific Walrus.
Vera Metcalf: The Yupic (sp) word for walrus is Iva (sp), itís very important not only
for our food, whole parts of the walrus are used to make skin boats, hides, the tusk is
made into very beautiful artwork, itís part of our identity, culturally.
Tony Fischbach: Itís hard to imagine life for many of these people without having this
relationship with walruses.
Vera Metcalf: With the increased ship traffic, the changing environment, weather, climate
changes, really concerns us, because we hope that walrus is there for us to continue hunting.
Narrator: This longer season of open water has created
the potential for greater human presence.
Now there is more opportunity for trans-ocean shipping, fishing, offshore oil and gas development,
and tourism.
Walrus and their calves must now contend with increased human presence ñ just as the security
of their summer sea ice disappears.
Chad Jay: One of the things weíre seeing is mortality to calves and young animals because
in these large haul outs if thereís a disturbance the walruses want to flee into the water and
very often some of the younger animals get trampled and killed.
Narrator: In 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
concluded that listing of the walrus as a Threatened Species was warranted.
Information is being gathered to support a final decision in 2017.
Skipper, Carl Schoch: Howís it look all clear?
Scott Hameister: Yup all clear.
Skipper, Carl Schoch: Thanks very much guys.
Harbor Master: You guys have a good sail.
Skipper, Carl Schoch: Thanks Joy, weíll see you in a few days I guess.
Narrator: Society needs to better understand how the
walrus is faring.
USGS scientists are working to see whether they are finding enough food, and where.
And to provide information to policy-makers to help avoid human disturbances to the walrus.
Narrator: Where are the walrus foraging?
Over the past several years USGS scientists have led expeditions to the remote Arctic
to find out.
Tony Fischbach: In the Alaskan waters we have about 95% of the worldís walruses, there
are perhaps 200 to 300,000.
During this trip weíll be applying 40 radios to walruses.
Chad Jay: The satellite radio tag has a barbed end and attaches in the blubber layer of the
walrus.
Itís more probably like a sliver that we get in our thumb and with time it migrates
out of the animal and drops off.
Essentially, weíre looking for walruses hauled out along the ice edge and when we get into
any numbers of them weíll launch the skiffs and start our tagging.
Tony Fischbach: A quarter mile.
Skipper, Carl Schoch: Hello, Norseman II go ahead.
Sarah Sonsthagen: You wouldnít by chance have an eye on those wallys that we left behind
do you?
Skipper, Carl Schoch: Uh not right now Iím directing the other boat but I can take a
look for you.
Sarah Sonsthagen: Thank you, yeah weíre kind of tooling around the wave point we took and
weíre not feeling them.
Skipper, Carl Schoch: The other skiff is just about on them so do you have a fix on them?
Tony Fischbach: uh roger weíve got them in the AIS weíll just follow on in.
Skipper, Carl Schoch: Thatís my best advice.
If I see that youíre going the wrong way I can redirect you.
Tony Fischbach: uh Scotty this is tony here weíve got an initial two groups so weíre
holding the position and weíll give you a bearing when youíre ready.
Scott Hameister: Very good, thank you.
Tony Fischbach: Weíve got to find walruses that have fallen asleep with their face into
the wind.
Theyíre very sensitive to smell.
Sara Sonsthagen: Weíre going to make an approach on these walruses theyíre a little skittish
so Iím going to go radio quiet a little here.
Tony Fischbach: We have to be about ten yards because we have to have a clear view of the
walruses back.
We then place the radio on their back.
Chad Jay: Did you see the animal we tagged?
Tony Fischbach: Uh negative weÖ..
Narrator: By the end of the 2012 expeditions, USGS will
have tracked more than 400 walrus in the Chukchi Sea, with each walrus contributing data about
its movement and behavior for the few weeks that the radio tags fall off.
What is the result of the disappearing sea ice?
Tony Fischbach: On an hourly basis these instruments can show us weather the walrus is resting
out of the water, uh in the water or actually foraging at the bottom of the sea.
The instrument collects that information, summarizes it every hour and then when the
weather satellites are passing overhead it transmits a signal eventually back at my desk
Iíll unfurl this information and build a diary for the walrus.
After a period of 3 weeks maybe at the very most 12 weeks the walrus skin rejects the
radios.
Narrator: Multiply that by 400 walrus.
Chad Jay: What weíve learned so far though, is we have been able to map some of the important
areas for walruses for foraging and also how theyíre migrating through the Chukchi Sea
as the sea ice retreats north weíre understanding more how the walrus migrate through the area.
Tony Fischbach: One of the goals of this project is to understand how their time allocation
is changed when thereís no sea ice to rest on.
When they forage from shore they have a very different time budget than when they are offshore
foraging.
Theyíre basically having to commute to get their food.
Narrator: Within the span of human memory, female walrus
and calves have not been seen foraging from shore in this way.
This behavior is a new response to change in their environment.
What are the consequences?
Now scientists have the information to analyze how much energy is used on these long commutes,
combined with a reduction in resting time.
Tony Fischbach: Doing this tracking weíre able to identify sort of the core foraging
grounds of Pacific Walruses, this is of great value to people who are concerned about new
developments in the Chukchi Sea both of transoceanic shipping that may be occurring in the near
future and of oil leasing.
Chad Jay: But walruses are also very important to subsistence users, Alaska Natives, theyíre
very interested in knowing more about what weíre finding out and really whatís going
on with climate change.
Vera Metcalf: Hopefully, the work that USGS does helps to sustain walrus for us in the
future.
Narrator: How are the walrus affected by increased human
activity?
How far must they go to forage?
There is no way to learn, but up close, in their habitat.
And so...
In the remote Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea, scientists continue on ñ tracking the
Pacific walrus.
(END)
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