"All The Animals Are Adult Females" - Walruses Come Ashore But Largely W/O Yearling Calves

[hatrack]

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of walruses crowded onto a sandy stretch of beach on Alaska's northwest coast. The animals were forced to swim to shore after the Arctic Sea ice they usually live on disappeared from the Chukchi Sea. It's a phenomenon that was unheard of five years ago. Anthony Fischbach, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, is trying to get a handle on what the dramatic change in behavior could mean for the species long-term.

On a recent foggy evening, Fischbach — dressed in camouflage to blend into the greenish-brown landscape — creeps toward the animals to record them. Several thousand walruses are on the beach, packed shoulder to shoulder. Fischbach calls it a "wall of walrus."

"I'm surprised by one thing," he says. "Essentially all the animals here are adult females." You'd expect to see about one in three with newborn yearling calves, he says.

The vast majority of walruses in the Chukchi each summer are females who fatten up on clams that populate the seafloor. They need a lot of protein to nurse their young. This time of year, they should be foraging from the sea ice floating over the productive waters of the continental shelf. Instead, they're stuck on land. "I only see a small number of yearling calves," Fischbach says. "That makes me wonder what's happening with the calves."

EDIT

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130083334&sc=fb&cc=fp

[Bolo Boffin]

1. What's happening is what always happens in a recession

The ice recedes so much, it can't support the now surplus population. There's only so far north you can swim, and then some will go under. Call it structural non-reproduction. The walruses will just have to learn to live with it. They should have planned for this eventuality better.

/Republican