Sea Ice Hunting Gone Walrus Refugees Haul Out On Beaches

Like human refugees fleeing bad conditions around the world north Pacific walrus are going anywhere they can get, over crowded, over stressed and under fed.

“With the sea ice they depend on for hunting and habitat disappearing at the end of the Arctic melt season, thousands of walruses have once again hauled out onto the northwestern Alaskan shoreline near Point Lay, Alaska.”  from Mashable

Seven out of the last nine years, this has happened.  In 2014 some 35,000 were estimated.

President Obama is due to make an historic visit to Alaska and the Arctic on August 31, with hopes by some that visuals from the great melt will finally end the ginned up debate and get action plans in place.

“The Arctic is unraveling,” said Rafe Pomerance, a member of the Polar Research Board and chair of Arctic 21, a coalition of groups lobbying for action on climate change and other Arctic matters.

… On land, melting permafrost is allowing more planet-warming greenhouse gases to seep into the atmosphere. At sea, there is increased access for shipping, natural resource drilling and military activities.

In the Fairbanks area there is a phenomenon known as “drunken forests” and “drunken homes”, where trees and buildings are leaning at odd angles because the previously frozen soil they rested in is softening up as average temperatures climb.