Meet Chukchi the Walrus

Recently, co-workers rescued this little guy from certain starvation in the Chukchi Sea. It would seem that his mom never made it back from a foraging trip. As he is a yearling he is not able to live on his own yet. He is currently getting cared for in our facilities and because walrus require constant attention will not be able to be returned to the wild and will instead go live out the rest of his life at Sea World in San Diego. Edited to add: He weighed in around 400lbs and alomst 5ft long with 9inch budding tusks.

Picture taken by Amy Haddow

Fun Facts about walrus:

1) The plural of walrus is walrus
2) Walrus can live up to 50 years and spend 3-5 years being raised by mum, nursing for the first 2 years of their lives
3) They are circumpolar in distribution, living in the high arctic and are dependent on the seasonal availability of the ice pack.
4) They are prefer shallower waters and eat primarily mollusks (clams, etc.)
5) They have amazing suction mouths...a walrus can suck up a bowling ball with it's mouth and move it. This causes havoc with captive animals as when they get bored they suck bolts out of cages and move entire gates.
6) An adult male can weigh up to 2 tons!
7) There are 3 sub-species of walrus but they are the only living members of their family and are thought to be related to bears.

Disturbance in the Sound

Edited to add: Anyone who rents a kayak or goes out with guides in this area is furnished with recommendations on how to approach marine mammals and what not to do. The kayakers I've written about had clearly identifiable rented kayaks.

To the four paddlers of two little red kayaks in a certain bay in Prince William Sound, Alaska seen around noon today.

Dear Kayakers ~

Today was both your lucky day and your unlucky day. It was lucky because you were foolish enough to pull your kayaks right up to that calving glacier and touch it's face without being squashed by a piece of ice carving off and effectively ending your existence. A rather foolish thing, don't you think? To challenge nature for a photograph that might have been the last of you?

It was your unlucky day because you blatantly broke the Marine Mammal Conservation Act (1972). Did you know that when seals lift their heads to look at you it is out of concern for your presence and not to pose for a photograph? I know, dear kayakers, that you must be a bit ignorant, hence the close up view of the glacier, but even you must have noticed the fact that as you approached them, even tried to put your kayaks on the icebergs the animals were resting on, that they fled to the water. You were there on a day when the brash ice was sparse and the seals had to clump together to find space in the ice.

Aerial Image of Harbor Seals hauled out on Ice

What you didn't know is that we saw you on glacier cam and that we have video footage of the whole thing. That's right, we remotely monitor these seals on an hourly basis all summer long. We weren't looking for you but how could we not notice? And there is a penalty for such disturbance of the marine wildlife. Had you merely accidentally scared them we would have let you off the hook but pursuing them? Foisting your kayak on their bergs as they frantically dove for the ice? That was inexcusable and avoidable and I regret to inform you that we ratted you out.