Researchers Discover "Surprising" Numbers Of Abandoned Baby Walruses

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Melting sea ice a danger to walruses-study
Friday 14 April 2006, 2:08pm EST
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By JoAnne Allen

WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - 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 (7 C) -- 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."

EDIT

http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nN14367846

starving walruses.
drowning polar bears.
orphaned seals.
beaches full of dead ocean birds.

I wonder what would happen if such footage were compiled into a documentary, where the rest of us who aren't field researchers could all gaze upon what's happening.

Pardon my mockery. This is a major problem, obviously, and in the next decade or two, we're going to be seeing hundreds of natural tragedies like these. And what we see implies a hundred other changes we won't see.

Consider the last major warm-up, which IIRC came right as the last glaciation came to an end. The temperature increased tremendously -- one figure I've seen quoted extensively is 59F -- in the polar regions. It only lasted a decade or so, but I wonder how many icebound species died during that episode.

That 59F increase was a natural one; the next one will have considerable human help. Orphaned seals, walruses, and baby bears will tug at the hearts of TV watchers in a few years, but how many will be left to weep over the orphaned human babies who will die of hunger in the arms of their dead parents?

--p!

...I'm having enough problems with text. But if anyone does do it, it should be screened in gas stations in a continuous loop.

IIRC, there's a small private cinema in the whitehouse. Pass the duct tape...