Photograph: Steven Kazlowski/Nature Picture Library
Thousands of walruses forced to crowd onto an Alaska beach because of disappearing summer sea ice are at risk of being stampeded to death, campaigners warned on Wednesday.
An estimated 35,000 walruses were spotted on a beach in north-western Alaska this week, as the summer sea ice fell to its sixth lowest in the satellite record.
It was the biggest known exodus of walruses to dry land ever observed in the portion of the Arctic under US control - but the seventh since 2000 - and was widely seen as a result of declining summer sea ice under climate change, scientists said.
About 50 walrus carcasses have also been spotted on the beach, near the village of Point Lay, since the walruses began converging there. Campaigners said they were concerned about more deaths because of mass stampedes.
Walruses are naturally skittish animals, unused to being closely packed together. They also spend 80% of their time on water. Those in the Chukchi sea this time of year are generally females and juveniles - and so at greater risk of being trampled to death.
'You have all these animals that are normally distributed on a flat surface. When they lose their sea ice habitat and come ashore in places that are accessible - like flat, sandy beaches - they gather in large numbers, and it becomes like a giant pig pile,' said Margaret Williams, managing director for the World Wildlife Fund's Arctic program. 'When they are disturbed it can cause stampedes in large numbers.'
Federal government scientists spotted the walruses on Saturday while flying over the remote beach. The scientists said their number was an estimate - and that there could well be other gatherings of walruses because of the low summer sea ice.
Such 'hauling outs' of walruses have become increasingly frequent since 2000 - as warming creates bigger expanses of open water in the summer months. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is considering expanding protections for walruses as an endangered species.
The sea ice was especially low this year, off Alaska and eastern Siberia, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Summer sea ice cover fell to 1.94m square miles on 17 September, according to the NSIDC, forcing the walruses onto land.
Those forays onto land have frequently proved deadly in the past, because of stampedes and competition for food. Scientists have recorded mass deaths of walruses due to stampedes following such landings in Russia.
'We have seen this phenomenon in terms of high concentrations of walruses that has been occurring on the Russian coast for some time in huge numbers. There are high rates of walrus mortality, especially in calves - babies,' said Williams.
In addition to the stampede risk, it is also much harder for the walruses to hunt from the beach. The walruses typically disperse over large expanses of water, uses ice floes as a platform to hunt for the clams and other shell fish that are their main food source.
They are also at risk from bears. Scientists had reported bear tracks in the area.
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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