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Study Finds Melting Sea Ice a Danger to Walruses

 

April 17, 2006 — By JoAnne Allen, Reuters

WASHINGTON — Arctic researchers who discovered a surprising number of

abandoned baby walruses say melting sea ice may be the culprit, according to a

study in the April issue of Aquatic Mammals.

 

During an icebreaker cruise in the Canada Basin two years ago, researchers

measured a unusually warm mass of water -- as high as 44 degrees F -- moving

into the area from the Bering Sea to the south. This warm water may have rapidly

melted seasonal sea ice over the shallow continental shelf north of Alaska, the

study said.

 

They also found nine lone and possibly abandoned walrus calves in the area, an

" unprecedented number " for walruses since mothers tend to stay with their calves

for two years.

 

" We were on a station for 24 hours, and the calves would be swimming around us,

crying. We couldn't rescue them, " said team member Carin Ashjian, a biologist at

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

 

Sea ice offers foraging walruses a place to rest. Mothers leave their calves on

the ice while they dive to feed on animals on the sea floor such as crabs and

clams.

 

But rising ocean temperatures may be forcing the walrus mothers to abandon their

young as they follow the rapidly retreating ice edge north to colder waters, the

study said.

 

Without their mothers, the calves likely drown or starve, according to the

research team.

 

" The young can't forage for themselves, " Ashjian said in a statement. " They

don't know how to eat. "

 

Sightings of solo walrus calves far from shore have not been reported before and

suggest increased polar warming may take a toll on the walrus population, the

study said.

 

" If walruses and other ice-associated marine mammals cannot adapt to caring for

their young in shallow waters without sea ice available as a resting platform

between dives to the sea floor, a significant population decline of this species

could occur, " the researchers concluded.

 

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study investigated the impact of

global climate change on the oceanic ecosystem over the continental shelf of

Alaska.

 

Source: Reuters

 

 

 

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