Walruses Killed in Global Warming Stampede

Contributing Monkie

Topics of Interest , , ,

Published on September 9, 2008

Section G Living, Green Report / Media, Nature / Non Human Stories

walruses 01 Walruses Killed in Global Warming Stampede

What comes to mind when you think of a deadly stampede? Cattle? Buffalo? A year-end sale at Barneys?

Certainly not walruses, right? But yet, thousands of them died this past spring on the Russian side of the Bering Strait — from a stampede that scientists say is a direct result of global warming.

Walruses are big-tusked mammals who, unlike seals, are unable to swim indefinitely, They typically use sea ice to rest or haul themselves onto land for a few weeks at time. (You may recall a poignant CG graphic in “The Inconvenient Truth” of a polar bear attempting to climb on various pieces of ice, only to have them crumble into pieces.)

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Walrus Ponders Why The Sea Is Boiling Hot

Contributing Monkie

Topics of Interest

Published on June 5, 2008

Section G Living, Green Report / Media, Nature / Non Human Stories

walrus enviroment heating up 01 Walrus Ponders Why The Sea Is Boiling Hot

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—Of cabbages—and kings—And why the sea is boiling hot—And whether pigs have wings.” Although, Lewis Carroll’s famed Through the Looking-Glass may appear like hallucinogenic hurdy gurdy, there’s a line in there that’s most prophetic (and no, its not the shoes).

Although not quite “boiling hot,” the sea temperature is certainly rising causing the polar ice sheet to thin, and leaving its occupants including the walrus increasingly without a home. Although exact numbers aren’t known, “recent surveys by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and others put the number at roughly 190,000, with the vast majority of walruses in the Pacific half of the Arctic and sub-Arctic Circle.”

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