Take a Number, Mr. Walrus
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
The Pacific walrus is imperiled by climate change, which is melting its icy Arctic home, and merits protection under the Endangered Species Act, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service said this week. Yet protections must wait until threats to higher-priority species are addressed, the agency said.
“The threats to the walrus are very real,” Geoff Haskett, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Alaska region, said on Tuesday.
But he added that the current size of the walrus population and the animal’s ability to shift to land during periods of heightened warming “make its immediate situation less dire than those facing other species such as the polar bear.”
The walrus will be designated a “candidate” species for listing under the Endangered Species Act, but under the candidate system that “places it near the end of the service’s nationwide listing priorities,” the agency said.
The Pacific walrus uses sea ice to birth and nurse its young and for rest and protection from predators. The species can shift to “haul-outs” on land when ice is scarce, but food is less available there and animals can be hurt and stressed by crowding and trampling.
The Pacific walrus uses sea ice to birth and nurse its young and for rest and protection from predators. The species can shift to “haul-outs” on land when ice is scarce, but food is less available there and animals can be hurt and stressed by crowding and trampling.
Federal scientists have determined that the continued decline in Arctic sea ice anticipated by climate models will lead to a decline in the species’ population in the foreseeable future.
Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service that led to the decision, said the decision not to act immediately “increases the odds that we might lose walruses forever.”
“The Obama administration has acknowledged that the walrus is facing extinction due to climate change, yet is withholding the very protections that can help save it,” Ms. Wolf said in a statement. “It’s like having a doctor declare that you are in critical condition, but then just leave you unattended in the hospital’s waiting room.”
The exact size of the Pacific walrus population is unknown, but a partial survey by American and Russian researchers in 2006 counted nearly 130,000. By contrast, the total polar bear population is believed to be no greater than 25,000.
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