All over the web today, there’s the theme of: “dead walrus = caused by climate change”. On the Climate Progress blog they have this picture of the dead walruses (seen at left) which have been circulated by the Associated Press. I found the source photo on the Alaskan Daily News (ADN) here.
While uncredited on Climate Progress, the photo appears to have been taken from an airplane or helicopter by Tony Fischbach of the U.S. Geological Survey and distributed via The Associated Press.
In the ADN news article two things stand out:
1- The USFWS official quoted in the article, says that he doesn’t know the cause of the deaths:
“It’s just too early to say until we can get someone on the ground,” Woods said.
They report the dead walruses appeared to be mostly new calves or yearlings. However, neither the age of the dead walruses nor the cause of death is known, said Bruce Woods, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
2- The AP reporter, Dan Joling, gives a platform to somebody who also isn’t on the ground, or even Alaska but works in San Francisco, who assigns climate change as the blame:
Shaye Wolf, spokeswoman for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the walrus deaths were alarming.
“It provides another indicator that climate change is taking a brutal toll on the Arctic,” she said.
This isn’t the first time AP writer Jolin has had a story angle downplayed by Brice Woods. The other poster child for Arctic climate change, the polar bear was part of a 2006 AP story where woods also downplayed the significance.
Before I say anything further, let me point out that I’m no expert on Alaskan wildlife. That being said, neither is Joe Romm and many of the other bloggers who repeated the AP story. So, I’m no more qualified to comment than any of them are. But since they’ve advanced a theory, I wish to do so also. I want to draw your attention to something curious in the Fischbach photograph that many websites used, but made no commentary on outside of the “dead walrus = caused by climate change” script.
Expand the photo above. Note that every walrus has what appears to be blood on it. I counted seven in the photo, each having a one or more red spots that seem to be bloody in origin. I can’t tell if the heads and tusks are on them carcasses either. Maybe somebody who knows what a dead beach walrus is supposed to look like can tell better? Hold onto that thought for a bit.
One of the theories from the “dead walrus = caused by climate change” theme is “Retreating sea ice might have taken away some of the platforms walrus use to hunt and rest, pushing to walrus to shore.”
Here’s a summary on the walrus from the University of Michigan:
Walruses prefer to inhabit areas with ice floes in the shallower regions near the coasts of Arctic waterways. Their seasonal migration patterns coincide with the changes in the ice. In the winter, walruses move south as the Arctic ice expands, and in the summer they retreat north as the ice recedes. This migration can cover distances of 3000 km. Individuals concentrate where the ice is relatively thin and dispersed in the winter. In the summer time, bulls may use isolated coastal beaches and rocky islets. Cows and young prefer to stay on ice floes in all seasons (Nowak 1991, Parker 1990).
And so says the theory, because they were pushed to shore, they were trampled by a stampede. No other cause is considered in this recent blast of news stories.
A stampede can be triggered by a polar bear, a plane or other perceived threat to the herd. That’s certainly possible. It has happened before according to this report from the Seattle Times in 2007:
Walruses are vulnerable to stampedes when they gather in such large numbers. The appearance of a polar bear, a hunter or a low-flying airplane can send them rushing to the water.
Sure enough, scientists received reports of hundreds and hundreds of walruses dead of internal injuries suffered in stampedes. Many of the youngest and weakest animals, mostly calves born in the spring, were crushed.
Biologist Anatoly Kochnev of Russia’s Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography estimated 3,000 to 4,000 walruses out of population of perhaps 200,000 died, or two or three times the usual number on shoreline haulouts.
He said the animals only started appearing on shore for extended periods in the late 1990s, after the sea ice receded.
“The reason is the global warming,” Kochnev said.
Here’s the article photo that shows a trampled walrus:
ANATOLY A. KOCHNEV / AP
This photo provided by Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography shows a dead walrus, foreground, after a stampede on Cape Vankarem, Russia in March, 2007.
Here’s another photo and story from the same time period, from Physorg.com
Headless Walruses Alarm Alaska Officials
August 16th, 2007 By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer
A dead walrus without its ivory tusks lay washed up on a beach of Norton sound off the coast of Nome, Alaska on Wednesday Aug. 15, 2007. The larger than normal number of walrus carcasses washing up on the beaches of Norton Sound has prompted an investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (AP Photo/Diana Haecker)
(AP) — An unusually high number of walrus carcasses missing their heads and ivory tusks have washed up on beaches this summer, alarming wildlife officials.
###
No mention of “global warming” in that story. It also didn’t get much coverage. Old news, poachers at work, move along nothing to see here.
But it brings up an interesting question. In the Fischbach photo above that prompted the latest round of “dead walrus = caused by climate change” stories, we have seven of seven carcasses apparently with blood on them. Many of them appear to have blood only at one end. In the 2007 Kochnev dead walrus photo above, attributed to trampling, we don’t see any blood as would be expected by a trampling, which usually causes death by internal injuries and traumatic asphyxiation.
In the paper on traumatic asphyxiation, they don’t attribute much to blunt force injuries, and there’s no mention of blood. True, its about humans, but humans are mammals with lungs also and I can’t find any papers on walrus tramplings. I’d venture it to be undocumented.
I suppose it is possible that some blood might be seen in a mass trampling of walrii, but in seven out of seven carcasses?
Another possible explanation that fits the blood evidence in the Fischbach photo might be illegal poaching for tusks. With the walrus on the beach and within easy reach of anyone with a rifle, they’d make easy targets, but that seems to not to be in the realm of possibilities for our current news writers and bloggers.
Here’s an article that talks about the walrus in depth and notes the poaching issue:
Although both the United States and Russia have prohibited hunting except by native peoples, some conservationists contend that this “subsistence” hunting is now primarily commercial. Poaching has increased since an international moratorium on international trade of elephant ivory was enacted (walrus ivory is a good substitute for many purposes). Between poaching and the legal killing of 10,000-15,000 walruses in the eastern and western Arctic each year, the population of all walruses is likely to decrease greatly.
Now again I’m no expert on Alaskan wildlife but in the current news context, why isn’t anyone mentioning the poaching issue at all?
The International Whaling Ban was put into effect in 1986. This too put a big crimp on the illicit world market for ivory, driving the price up.
Since then there’s been quite a bit of walrus poaching for ivory.
In 1992, the CBS Evening News did a report on Walrus poaching:
(Studio: Dan Rather) Report introduced.
(Washington: Rita Braver) Walrus poaching ring in Alaska featured; excerpt shown of poaching videotaped by undercover United States Fish and Wildlife agent. [Fish and Wildlife Service director, John TURNER – talks about illegal ivory trading.] Details given, videotape excerpt shown of bogus trading post sting operation by United States Fish and Wildlife agents. [Special agent Adam O’HARA – comments on poachers.]
Here’s a prosecution in the news in 2004:
Men accused of shooting animals to sell tusks – without using the rest of them
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FAIRBANKS – Five Gambell men are accused of poaching walruses in the Bering Sea to sell the tusks. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/080804/sta_poaching.shtml
An here’s a recent investigative report that has been turned into a book. “Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab Is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species”
Excerpts:
At a recent meeting, leaders of the Alaska Native walrus hunting community had urged him to investigate illegal walrus hunting. While most Alaskan Natives scorned “headhunting,” —killing a walrus simply for its ivory tusks—Crane could see numerous examples from the seat of his plane. Local residents typically blamed the Russian villages on the other side of the Bering Strait. They claimed time and waves brought the dead animals to Alaska and that local Inuit hunters took the tusks – the only part that could be salvaged from the decomposing bodies.
Had the animals died naturally and then had their heads cut off? Or had they been killed for their tusks? Did Russian bullets kill the animals? Had Alaskans? The situation had been going on for years, and it was time to put an end to it. Crane needed definitive answers.
Normally, Crane would have sent the items to the lab for analysis. This time, the sheer size and number of the bodies forced a different approach. A team of forensic scientists, composed of FWS Lab Director Ken Goddard, Deputy Director Edgard (Ed) Espinoza, and veterinary medical examiner Richard (Dick) Stroud, would go to the scene.
Like the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Animal Investigators spotted dead walrus from the air. Then they went onto the beach to give the full CSI treatment.
But what if Animal Investigators had simply shrugged their shoulders and said “eh, global warming”?
We know the Arctic has had warm spells before, such as occurred in 1922.
November 2nd, 1922. Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
The walrus apparently did OK then, as it has through millenia before man. Why all of the sudden then is the main cause of walrus deaths attributed to “global warming”. Is it reporting bias, like we’ve seen with extreme weather events now viewed by satellite and Doppler radar that would have gone unnoticed in the past? Given that we now have broad eyes and ears in the Arctic, are we simply more attuned than 100 years ago? Id say that is a factor.
Bu also, why when given a news photo showing seven apparently bloody walrus carcasses has nobody raised the possibility of poaching?
Nobody, including me, wants to see our Alaskan wildlife die or be killed through greed, stupidity, or carelessness. But before we go slapping on that catch all label of “global warming did it”, even before the primary wildlife investigators of this weeks event get a chance to get on the ground and determine the cause, we owe it to the animals and to ourselves to look at all the possibilities and to wait to determine the true cause before we go laying blame.
Otherwise, walrus poaching might just get a free pass under the guise of “global warming did it”.
The butler did it… in the dining room… with a candlestick.
Seriously, I hope we get a WUWT update after the “boots on the ground” determine the true cause of death.
A minor correction: its the “Alaska Daily News” not “Alaskan” as it reads in the first paragraph. Or “Alaska Daily Worker” for those who are not fans of its blatant editorial bias.
And it’s not unheard of for idiots to shoot up a herd just for the ‘fun’ of it, whether it’s walrus or caribou. No meat, or tusks or hides taken, just killing for the thrill. Hell, they’ve even shot several brown bear in the same fashion.
Finally, the feds could have people on the ground at the site in one day, weather permitting. That beach looks like you could land a bush plane on it, or run some 4-wheelers down from the nearest village. The feds have plenty of helicopters, too.
Brian in Alaska (12:31:33) :
Here in the Netherlands, we know it better as the Anchorage Daily News!
I’ve got to call BS on Phil’s claim that tides have come up and washed away evidence on the ground around the bodies. You’d think he was a teacher in front of a bunch of school kids, able to make unfounded observations without someone speaking up to disagree.
If you look at the top left of the photo, you can see the edge of the water. Note that for the first 15-20 feet or so from the water’s edge the sand is smooth and compacted, signs that it was covered by water and smoothed by waves recently. Then as you move further away from the beach the character of the sand changes-it is less smooth and compacted. The last high tide may not have reached that high. The nature of the sand changes completely when you reach the body of the first walrus. Here the sand has obviously not been covered by water for weeks, perhaps since the last monthly high tide. If this area had water waves washing over it recently, the sand would be smooth.
Most of the walruses are up by the rise in the beach which marks the beach’s storm line. The storm line is where all the debris picked up and floating around during the last large storm was washed very high up onto the beach.
To some extent I agree with Phil about the “tire tracks” some claim to have seen. On close examination the straight dark lines seem to be mostly shadows, and appear to be single short lines, and with the quality of this photograph could be anything. I’m skeptical about the “footprints” too. Might be footprints, might not. Again, the picture quality doesn’t really allow us to tell.
I think a lot of the speculation and assertions about the details of this picture are pointless, given the quality of the photo released.
Dan Murphy
Poachers,period.Unless AGW drove them to kill Waluri….
I have had training in Biology and have hunted and fished
over the Western US.This is Poaching….
John F. Hultquist (10:26:09) :
Another oddity is that people get trampled and killed at special shopping events, music concerts, soccer games, nightclub fires, and by bulls in Spain – anywhere thousands crowd together it seems a few get hurt or killed. I don’t think walruses (walrii ?) have a special dispensation from this sort of thing.
I am of a mind by this option. The cause of the stampede could have been any natural enemy; especially human beings. There are four natural enemies of walruses: ice that slips and falls on them, polar bears, whales and human hunters.
We don’t need hunters for causing stampedes; the smallest amount of human smell causes the walruses to flee headlong into the sea. If 200 carcasses were found, then the Stampede was caused by a large group of humans or by strident sounds made by something overflying the area.
Phil. (10:30:58) :
That is the same photo that appears on Joe Romm’s site and is linked to the Daily Mail in the UK – just on what basis are you claiming that it is a photo of that location just a few weeks ago? It is not unheard of to use stock photos several years old to illustrate a current story. I’ve been unable to track down any information about that photo, other than what you are claiming here…. and since you are using it as proof of something, demonstrating the provenance is not out of order.
Romm has taken down the photo at climate progress.
Robert E. Phelan (14:58:49) :
Phil. (10:30:58) :
That is the same photo that appears on Joe Romm’s site and is linked to the Daily Mail in the UK – just on what basis are you claiming that it is a photo of that location just a few weeks ago? It is not unheard of to use stock photos several years old to illustrate a current story. I’ve been unable to track down any information about that photo, other than what you are claiming here…. and since you are using it as proof of something, demonstrating the provenance is not out of order.
Quite so,happy to oblige. I don’t know anything about Joe Romm or the Daily Mail, the picture I linked to was by Gary Friedrichsen / Noaa / The Associated Press, it was stated to be a photo taken of Walruses which were hauled out Sept. 6 on the shore of Icy Cape about 140 southwest of Barrow.
Anthony,
I trust that we will get a report on WUWT after the forensic team has completed its assessment of the bloodied walruses, but will we read it in the newspaper or see it on TV? I doubt it.
Paul Kelly (17:30:22) :
Romm has taken down the photo at climate progress.
Nope. Still there. I was talking about the largish herd on the beach that Phil linked to, not the dead ones, just in case there is any confusion. I spent over an hour trying to track that photo down after Phil claimed it was from the same place a few weeks earlier. Found zip. It appeared in several papers publishing the AP article, but nothing about who took it, where or when. It might be as Phil says or it might be a stock photo taken years ago in Tierra del Fuego. Given the hoo-ha Anthony enjoyed over that wallabee in the snow and the snow bank pictures, checking provenance didn’t seem out of line.
An hour. You’d think I didn’t have a real life somewhere.
Brian in Alaska (12:31:33) :
And it’s not unheard of for idiots to shoot up a herd just for the ‘fun’ of it, whether it’s walrus or caribou. No meat, or tusks or hides taken, just killing for the thrill. Hell, they’ve even shot several brown bear in the same fashion.
I’m sure it’s a bit out of the way for that I’d have thought.
Finally, the feds could have people on the ground at the site in one day, weather permitting. That beach looks like you could land a bush plane on it, or run some 4-wheelers down from the nearest village. The feds have plenty of helicopters, too.
I’m a pilot and I’d only land there in an emergency (and I wouldn’t expect to be able to take off).
According to the Feds: “The weather, I must say, has been very uncooperative,” he said. “A lot of airplanes are stuck on the ground. Information is coming to us very slowly.”
Wouldn’t the beach sand be more disturbed if a massive herd had stampeded over the victims?
mr.artday (21:19:07) :
Wouldn’t the beach sand be more disturbed if a massive herd had stampeded over the victims?
Yes I think it would. As I said above the way the carcasses are bedded into the sand is characteristic of their having been washed by the surf. Either by being covered in place by a rising tide/storm surge or by being washed up there in a storm having died elsewhere on the beach. Contrary to what some have said above there are no footprints or tiretracks on that photograph.
J.Hansford (11:24:37) :
Those dead walrus have been detusked…. There is even shoe prints around them.
Well until it’s contradicted I’ll take the word of the walrus biologists who overflew the scene that the carcasses were of yearlings or calves in which case there were no tusks to remove. Also there were no footprints on the photograph that I’ve seen.
Looks to me to be hunters. They’ll have to take it up with the indigenous owners of the land.
Well the ‘indigenous owners of the land’ generally don’t like to waste the animals by only taking tusks and it seems unlikely that they’d kill ~200 in that way and just leave them there. The above statement re calves notwithstanding.
Aylamp, You are so right! LOL! I’ve corrected folks so often on the “Alaskan Range” or “Alaskan Peninsula” I got stuck in my own rut. Well spotted.
Phil, I’ve landed on many beaches like that on hunts, it’s a common spot to land. Pilots up here do it all in a day’s work. Low tide, down by the tideline, generally smooth and firm on a sandy/gravel beach.
And out of the way places are THE places poaches like to operate.
The weather is the only excuse I’ll buy for not going out there.
Guys, I reckon some of you are no better than the AGW alarmists. One comment above was that there were tyre tracks in the bottom left corner, not to mention footprints around each carcass. What a pile of baloney, I say. And blood stains – where did you all get the magnifying glass to pick those out from a photo taken at an altitude of 200 feet or more? Are your monitors 5 feet square? Until someone gets there on the ground no-one knows. The rest is just your personal bias reading into this photo whatever you want to see. In my opinion, whatever killed them, it was definitely nothing to do with climate change.
These animals were poached for their ivory. Since elephant ivory is essentially unavailable, walrus ivory is very much in demand.
Many custom knife makers, for instance, advertise walrus ivory scales [handles], as do makers of custom firearms grips. In addition, collectors buy mounted walrus ivory tusks for display.
But the alarmist crowd, using the tactic of “silence is concurrence,” mendaciously supports the baseless conjecture that global warming [all 0.6° of it] is the cause of this walrus poaching.
Thanks for sharing the information.
I haven’t seen anyone point out the obvious fact that AGW would make the walrus’ native lands more hospitable for hunters, I mean, who wouldn’t want to go on an artic big game hunt if it wasn’t all cold, frozen and snowy? So it is probably fair to blame AGW, it’s just not fair to say AGW is bad.
If you’re disturbed about them taking the tusks and leaving the body, blame the ridiculous bans on ivory over the past several decades. Why even our government has managed (somehow) to mostly successfully manage the edible herds in our country, I don’t believe for a second the ivory trade couldn’t have been successfully managed as well.
Phil. (08:59:02) :
Did you ask him why the poachers would shoot ~200 walrus calves and leave the bodies behind?
That would have insulted his intelligence, and caused him to doubt mine. Poachers shoot walrus for their tusks, not their meat.
Bill Tuttle (13:45:10) :
Phil. (08:59:02) :
“Did you ask him why the poachers would shoot ~200 walrus calves and leave the bodies behind?”
That would have insulted his intelligence, and caused him to doubt mine. Poachers shoot walrus for their tusks, not their meat.
And walrus calves don’t have tusks which was the gist of the question.
Well obviously Orcas are art collectors, and they like to carve walruss tusks; why else would they kill a walruss, and take just it’s head and tusks.
“””And walrus calves don’t have tusks which was the gist of the question.”””
So what do walruss calves live off (besides their mother’s milk); until they develop tusks for digging clams off the bottom ?
It’s difficut to see, but are all the animals [more or less] facing the same direction? As if fleeing from a predator? I’m going to go out on a limb here and conclude: Death due to lead poisoning.
Phil. (23:18:09) :
1. the walrus biologist(s) did not make a statement. That “THEY” in the article does not seem to refer to anyone. No idea who THEY are.
2. You have to be looking at the same photo the rest of us are. Frankly, I see what could be foot prints. I’m not a photo analyst, so I could be wrong.
3. My guess is you know nothing about “indigenous people” and what they are likely or not likely to do. The implication of your statement that evil white men would kill 200 walruses and leave them to rot while the noble Inuit, reverent of nature, would not is a crock.
Anthony Fischbach took the photo and is out of the office ’till Wednesday… let’s see what he has to say when he gets back, hmmm? And let’s argue from what we really know, OK?